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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.! 



COLLEGE LIFE: 



nA 



ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE. 



/ 

REV. STEPHEN OLIN, D.D., LL.D., 

LATE PRESIDENT OF THE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 



it^J 



NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
1867. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and 
sixty-seven, by 

HARPER & BROTHERS, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. 



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PREFACE. 



The Baccalaureate Discourses in this volume were 
addressed by Dr. Olin to the young men under his charge 
during the last years, the Lectures during the last months, 
of his life. The writing of the Lectures was his closing 
literary labor, their delivery his final public utterance. A 
precious legacy to students, in whose welfare he was most 
deeply interested, their earnest words have in many in- 
stances given permanent impressions to character, decided 
direction to conduct. They embody his mature and com- 
prehensive views in relation to mental and moral culture, 
developed in the experience of nearly a quarter of a 
century spent in college halls ; and their suggestions and 
counsels deserve the careful consideration of the under- 
graduates of the colleges of our land. 

As there has been a special demand for the volume of 
Dr. Olin's Works containing these lessons to young men 
— lessons from their point and power entitled to take a 
permanent place in college literature — it has been thought 
desirable to issue them in a form adapted to the library 
of a student. 



CONTENTS. 

®lje Sljeoru anh practice of Sdjolasiic &\U. 

(in seven lectures.) 
LECTURE I. 

IMPORTANCE % OF UNDERSTANDING THE TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC 

LIFE. 

Introductory Remarks. — All serious Pursuits have a recognized The- 
ory. — Educated Intellect encroaches upon the Sphere of mere physi- 
cal Energy. — Illustration. — Education a Science as well as an Art. 
— An Acquaintance with the Theory essential to the Success of 
the Teacher. — Still more so to the Student. — Involuntary Inmate3 
of a College. — Mental Aliment without mental Appetite. — Its Re- 
sults. — Revolt from an odious Bondage. — Few youthful Defects 
irretrievable. — Curative Discipline of a wise mental Regimen. — 
Manly Resolutions and Efforts. — The Law of Habit. — Its Efficacy. 
— It diminishes the Friction of Life, and is highly beneficent, but 
despotic. — The Boy is Law-giver to the Man; hence the supreme 
Importance of attending to the Formation of Habits. — No Antidote 
for Offenses against our intellectual Nature. — The Season for sow- 
ing no less important than the Soil. — Temptations of the young 
Student to embrace fallacious Theories of academic Life.. . Page 9 

LECTURE II. 

MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF LIBERAL STUDIES. 

Nature and proper Function of Motives. — Treatment of first Princi- 
ples necessarily Metaphysical. — Arguments from no other Source 
so luminous and satisfactory. — False Theories adopted by some 
Students relative to their own Capabilities. — Causes of their adop- 
tion : Indolence ; imperfect mastery of elementary Principles. — 
The Remedy. — Various types of Mind. — Difference between Mo- 
tives which do and which ought to control. — The power of Motive 
not arbitrary. — Men have power to control the Motives that control 
them. — Selection of the Motive Forces. — They should be pure, per- 



CONTENTS. 



manent, elevating. — Difference between voluntary and involuntary 
Motives ; unworthy and inadequate Motives ; a desire to escape 
more laborious Occupations ; dread of Disgrace ; the gratification 
of parental Pride ; Emulation ; Ambition : the two last, however, 
not to be discarded as purely mischievous. — Ambition distinguish- 
able from Emulation, but liable to the same Objection. — Character- 
istics of an ambitious College-Student Page 23 

LECTURE III. 

PEOPER INCENTIVES TO HIGH INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. 

Difficulties in the Student's Career not greater than they should be.— 
A Mind not Insane or Imbecile is competent to overcome them. — 
Analogy between the Cultivation of the Mental and the Moral Pow- 
ers. — The Dictates of Conscience. — Proper Incentives 'to a thor- 
ough Education must fulfill two indispensable Conditions : Conge- 
niality to the Mind and Permanency in their Influence. — A Desire 
to develop and cultivate the Intellect. — The Connection of the Mo- 
tive with the End of Intellectual Pursuits. — On this Principle, the 
attempt to learn is of itself Success, and every Obstacle overcome 
is a Triumph. — The Student is preparing not only for Temporal 
Enjoyments, but for the Cycles of Eternal Being. — The Mental no 
less than the Moral Character receives ineffaceable Impressions in 
the present Life. — Curiosity as a Motive. — Its Function analogous 
to that of the Appetite. — Its Suggestions always to be heeded. — 
Difference in this Respect between a Wise Man and a Fool.— Cu- 
riosity as tending to produce an earnest love of Truth for its own 
Sake. — Mental Habitudes of Newton and of Washington. — Admon- 
itory Caution 36 

LECTURE IV. 

DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 

Retrospect of the preceding Suggestions. — Claims of Patriotism and 
of Religion. — What is Education 1 — Analogies from physical Train- 
ing, Labor, Rest, Recreation, Diet, Dress, general Symmetry. — 
Distortion and Malformation. — Some Faculties of the Mind invigo- 
rated at the expense of others. — Illustrations.— Course of Study 
should be comprehensive, well selected, and well proportioned. — ■ 
It is the mental Effort, and not the Knowledge attained, that dis- 
ciplines the Mind. — Illustrations. — Shallow but common Argument 
against the pursuit of literary Studies. — Grievous Mistakes into 
which Students fall from not appreciating the true Idea of Educa- 



CONTENTS. 



tion. — The Mischief enhanced by the example of showy Accomplish- 
ments. — The Course of Studies pursued in American Colleges. — 
The Result of protracted Experiments in Education, and the best 
System ever devised for the Development and Discipline of the 
Mind Page 50 

LECTURE V. 

THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 

Early intellectual Habits. — Power to modify and change them. — The 
Memory. — Concentration of Thought. — Improvement of the reason- 
ing Faculties. — The Study of general Principles. — Illustrations from 
Chemistry and Geology. — The Mathematics. — The Languages of 
Antiquity. — New Sources of Satisfaction thence arising to the dili- 
gent Student. — The attainment of a pure and elegant Style. — A 
Suggestion from personal Experience. — Efficacy of Method and or- 
derly Arrangement. — Objections answered. — Laws of Association. 
— Superficial Methods of Study. — Thoroughness of Investigation 
the only Method of making future Studies easy and pleasant. — Fa- 
cility of Acquisition not always a test of intellectual Capacity. — 
What are called hard Studies rather to be preferred. — From them 
the Mind derives Strength. — Discipline rather than brilliant Tal- 
ents produces great Men 64 

LECTURE VI. 

OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY AND GOOD TASTE. 

A difficult Problem. — Essentials to the efficiency and completeness of 
Mental Discipline. — Attention to minor Matters. — Vices of Manner, 
when habitual, difficult to eradicate. — Vicious Pronunciation of 
common English Words. — The Remedy to be applied in Youth, if 

» ever. — The correction of Faults does not require Talent and Ge- 
nius, but Humility and Resolution. — Awkwardness of Attitude and 
Gesture. — Slang Phrases. — Corrupt Language leads to corruption 
of Taste. — Grossness cultivated by the Student clings to the Man 
in after Life. — Self-reforming Power the distinguishing Privilege 
of the Young. — Labor, Self-denial, Patience, Perseverance requi- 
site. — Analogy from the business of the Gardener. — Attention fixed 
on Things to be avoided rather than on Things to be acquired. — 
The removal of a Fault more important than the acquisition of an 
Accomplishment. — Simplicity of Action. — Unambitious Style. — Pu- 
rity of Language. — Use of strong Epithets. — Illustrations. — Effects. 
— False Rhetoric .eads to false Logic 78 



VI "CONTENTS. 



LECTURE VIL 

THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. 

Nature and power of Habit. — Character widely different from Repu- 
tation. — It is made up of a Man's real Qualities and Accomplish- 
ments. — Latent Agencies incessantly at work. — Peculiar Impressi- 
bility of the youthful Mind. — Far more so than that of Childhood or 
mature Manhood. — Germs of Good and Evil rapidly developed at 
College. — Practical importance of the prudential Regulations of 
Academic Life.— System and Regularity. — Punctuality.— Order. — 
A Defense against the Encroachments of Indolence. — Character 
modified by Associations. — Laws of Academic Institutions. — They 
are its Ideal, its Model. — Why they do not always produce the de- 
sired Result. — Young Men are Free Agents Page 94 



J&atzaiaixxzate 3D is tonxses. 

i. 

INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOK SUCCESS IN LIFE. 

A Discourse to the Graduating Class of the Wesleyan University. 
1844 105 

II. 

RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 

A Discourse to the Graduating Class of the Wesleyan University. 
1845 125 

III. 

THE RELATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE TO MENTAL CULTURE. 

A Discourse to the Graduating Class of the Wesleyan University. 
1848 '. 163 

IV. 

EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF ELEVATED CHARACTER. 

A Discourse to the Graduating Class of the Wesleyan University. 
1849 ' 201 



LECTURES, &c. 

®l)e (Eljeorg anb Practice of Scholastic £ife. 

LECTURE I. 

IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE TRUE THEORY OF 
SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 

Introductory Remarks. — All serious Pursuits have a recognized The- 
ory. — Educated Intellect encroaches upon the Sphere of mere physi- 
cal Energy. — Illustration. — Education a Science as well as an Art.— 
An Acquaintance with the Theory essential to the Success of the 
Teacher — Still more so to the Student. — Involuntary Inmates of a 
College. — Mental Aliment without mental Appetite. — Its Results. — 
Revolt from an odious Bondage. — Few youthful Defects irretrieva- 
ble. — Curative Discipline of a wise mental Regimen. — Manly Reso- 
lutions and Efforts. — The Law of Habit. — Its Efficacy. — It diminish- 
es the Friction of Life, and is highly beneficent, but despotic. — The 
Boy is Law-giver to the Man; hence the supreme Importance of at- 
tending to the Formation of Habits. — No Antidote for Offenses against 
our intellectual Nature. — The Season for sowing no less important 
than the Soil. — Temptations of the young Student to embrace falla- 
cious Theories of academic Life. 

I have long desired to read a brief course of Lectures be- 
fore the students of the University on the theory and practice 
of the Scholastic Life. Hitherto I have been prevented from 
entering on the execution of this design by the same cause 
which has thwarted so many of my plans for professional 
usefulness. That I am hereafter to be exempt from these 
interruptions, I know not that I have reasonable ground of 
expectation, and the brief discourse to which you are about 
to listen does not pledge or purpose any extended discussion 

A 2 



10 IMPORTANCE OP UNDERSTANDING THE 

of the subject which has been suggested. This essay is not 
offered as an introduction to such a discussion, nor as ex- 
pressive of a hope that I may be able to follow it up with 
such a course of instruction as seems to me very desirable 
Should circumstances permit, however, I shall gladly prose- 
cute the design suggested, in a few lectures, delivered occa- 
sionally, and at such intervals and at such times as may be 
most convenient. Such a plan, or, to speak more properly, 
this entire absence of a plan, will exclude the possibility of 
symmetry and fullness ; but the most brief, desultory treat 
ment of such a subject may not be unfruitful of suggestivo 
hints, which the thoughtful student will be able to pursue 
and elaborate for himself. Any exposition of the principles 
and maxims concerned in his daily occupations may be ex- 
pected to exert an influence valuable in proportion to the 
philosophical insight and practical wisdom with which it 
may be characterized. 

Every serious pursuit in which the various powers and 
faculties of men find employment has a theoi'y — a code of 
fundamental principles, or, at least, of recognized rules of pro- 
cedure, in accordance with which its labors are supposed to 
be conducted. This is true of the various branches of handi- 
craft and of mechanic arts, no less than of those higher de- 
partments of study and activity which give employment to 
the most distinguished professional attainments and the pro- 
foundest scientific knowledge. As society advances in civil- 
ization and refinement, the simple operations of the work-shop 
and the field grow into arts and sciences. The rude appli- 
ances of the peasant-mechanic give place to the elaborate 
machinery and dynamic combinations of an industrial estab- 
lishment. Every step in this career of improvement implies 
and necessitates a corresponding progress in the artisan and 
the operative. Formerly it was enough that he possessed 
vigor and dexterity. Precision of the eye was his guiding 
intelligence, and the right hand's strength and cunning were 



TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 11 

instead of mechanical forces and adjustments. Skillful man- 
ipulation was then all-sufficient for his purpose ; hut he must 
now draw upon his mental resources, and rise up to the com- 
prehension of a principle at the peril of being thrown out of 
employment, or of being fixed in the position of an unthink- 
ing co-operative, with the wheels and hammers that whirl 
and clack around him. It is in obedience to the laws of our 
being that intellect and education incessantly encroach upon 
the sphere of unintelligent physical energy, and gradually 
extend their dominion over the entire field of human occupa- 
tions. Of the strength and universality of this tendency, a 
striking illustration is furnished by the present condition of 
the laboring classes in this country. These classes are com- 
posed partly of native-born citizens, who have enjoyed the 
benefits of a good common education, and partly of foreign 
immigrants, who have never learned to read, or, what is about 
its equivalent, having learned to read, have been prevented 
by their rulers, their religious teachers, or their poverty, from 
reading books calculated to awaken thought and invigorate 
the intellect. As a result of this difference in mental condi- 
tion, those who have been trained to think, do, as a general 
rule, engross all the occupations in which thought and intel- 
ligence are favorable to success, while the more rude exotic 
masses are doomed to perform the drudgery and to fill the 
"servile offices of a great nation. 

The uneducated Irishman excavates canals and rail-roads. 
He is a porter, a hod-carrier, a quarry-man, a stable-boy, but 
seldom an artisan, an architect, an engineer, or a master- 
builder. He can wield a spade or perforate a rock by the 
monotonous stroke of the drill, but he is generally found 
poorly qualified for the more complex operations of agricul- 
ture ; and his daughters seldom make good operatives in a 
manufactory. It is instructive to observe with what uner- 
ring instincts these untaught sons of toil and misfortune, upon 
their first arrival upon our shores, subside into their natural 



12 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE 

place beneath the lowest stratum of our American society, 
and, lifting up the superincumbent mass upon their brawny 
shoulders, seize upon all the humbler occupations as the en- 
dowment held in trust for them by this great, free country. 
It is not national prejudice or national jealousy that imposes 
this inevitable burden upon the adopted citizen. It is not his 
natural inferiority in mental or physical endowments. "We 
freely admit the refugees of all nations to share all the privi- 
leges and facilities of our fruitful domain, and the educated 
Irishman and the educated German are wont to prosper, even 
beyond the men of other races, in the various departments of 
business and enterprise. The comparative ignorance of the 
immigrant" must be held responsible for all the unfavorable 
results of his unequal competition with the native American. 
The American is intelligent. He brings an awakened intel- 
lect to the pursuits of life. He grasps the theory — he com- 
prehends the principles of his occupation, and to that extent, 
at least, he is a philosopher whose hands are guided by his 
understanding. The blunter and the darker intellect plies 
his tools diligently enough, but never stirs his ideas. He is 
the very slave of routine, but is incapable of understanding 
or following out a theory. He is a prodigy of dexterity, 
which comes from a patient repetition of one or a series of 
corporeal movements, but is hopelessly deficient in skill, 
which supposes some comprehension of the science needful 
to the perfection of his art. 

To apply this palpable but highly instructive illustration 
to the subject in hand, the scholastic life involves iheorif as 
well as 'practice. Education is a science as well as an art. 
Educational institutions are organized and conducted on well- 
established philosophical principles, no less than in accord- 
ance with the lessons of experience and the exigencies of 
the current time. The pursuits of the student rest upon 
grounds, and are sustained by reasons that lie back of all 
schools and colleges, and possess an authority quite independ- 



TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 13 

ent of positive rules and institutions. It is admitted, on all 
hands, that the teacher who has not mastered these funda- 
mental principles, and who does not feel their power, and in- 
fuse their spirit into the performance of his duties, is emi- 
nently disqualified for his vocation. He degrades a liberal, 
intellectual function into irksome drudgery, which, when it 
no longer ministers in the presence of a guiding philosophy, 
no longer possesses power to move the springs of mental ac- 
tivity, or authority to direct the inquiries of awakened curi- 
osity. With a good reason, then, is it demanded of every in- 
structor of youth that he should come to the discharge of his 
duties in the full comprehension of the principles that under- 
lie his art ; but the reason is good and sufficient only be- 
cause, to the fit discharge of such duties, it is indispensable 
that he be able to induct his pupils into a mastery of the 
same higher philosophy. 

This knowledge of first principles is even more important 
to the student who aspires to an education truly liberal than 
to the teacher himself, who often acquires the elements of 
science and language very perfectly by virtue of endless rep- 
etitions, while wholly unconscious of their subtile powers and 
manifold relations and affinities. By force of inveterate 
habit, he can walk in the dark, and without tripping, the 
wonted round of his narrow curriculum. He may be likened 
to the porter of a princely mansion, who never advances be- 
yond the vestibule of the palace, though forever employed in 
opening the door which admits hundreds into beautiful sa- 
loons blazing with light and magnificence. 

The great majority of those who enter our higher institu- 
tions of learning do not study science and literature as a pro- 
fession, but as a discipline — as the only approved method of 
acquiring high mental accomplishments, and as the richest 
source of refined, elevating pleasures. For the attainment of 
such ends, something more is manifestly demanded than an 
unsympathizing, half-forced compliance with the routine of 



14: IMPORTANCE OP UNDERSTANDING THE 

the study and the lecture-room. The most exemplary indus- 
try may easily forfeit some of the highest rewards of mental 
effort for want of taking into its theory of the scholastic life a 
few just, guiding ideas, and the most honorahle ambition, at 
the close of the most successful scholastic career, often finds it- 
self disappointed and chagrined just because, through its fault 
or its misfortune, it chose to yield the direction of irretrieva- 
ble years and opportunities to the control of ideas and motives 
which, however favorable to intensity of purpose and pursuit, 
are not found compatible with the freest and most healthy 
intellectual growth, and with the fullest breadth and depth 
of intellectual life. 

These remarks do, as I will allow myself to believe, suffi- 
ciently develop the general object and intention of this lec- 
ture. It seeks to demonstrate, and to impress on those who 
hear me, the pressing elementary importance of comprehend- 
ing the theory of the scholastic life, and of prosecuting their 
studies under the guiding, sustaining impulses of an intelli- 
gent ever-conscious homage to the reasons that should inspire 
and control their pursuits. 

The aims of this discussion suppose in the student an in- 
genuous desire to make the most of his academic opportuni- 
ties — a willingness to endure the labor of mental effort — a 
manly purpose to bestow upon the capacities with which Na- 
ture has endowed him, a diligent and pains-taking culture — 
a laudable ambition to attain to whatever mental excellence 
may be conceded to a thoughtful, earnest use of his time and 
opportunities. It must be obvious to all that a system of ed- 
ucation conceived and carried out in a just, philosophical 
spirit, can adapt itself to those only who really desire to be 
educated, and who are prepared to co-operate heartily in the 
accomplishment of this object. The teacher will no doubt 
have, to provide for a number of anomalous cases in which 
the voluntary concurrence will be too feeble for easy recogni- 
tion, but with these he must deal as exceptions to all natural 



TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 15 

and reasonable laws, and by such expedients as observation, 
experience, or even despair may suggest. 

I am also aware that there is usually to be found in places 
of public education a class of young students who are en- 
gaged in scholastic pursuits in deference to wishes and ar- 
rangements in which their own preferences have not been 
consulted, and from which, if their tastes had been gratified, 
they would perhaps have chosen to refrain. We are accus- 
tomed, however, to find in this class a number of examples 
of fine, growing scholarship, and it is often a peculiar advant- 
age enjoyed by persons so young that they have not acquired 
that relish for the excitements, the gains, or the freedom of 
active life which diverts so many who come later to engage 
in scholastic pursuits, from their chosen career. If young 
men in this particular stage and condition of intellectual de- 
velopment will, as in duty and all consistency bound, hold 
themselves pledged to carry out the cherished design of the 
parent, under the favorable auspices of the large and manly 
philosophy which is here commended to their approbation, I 
know not who may cultivate the field now open before them 
with fairer hopes of reaping a plentiful harvest. 

Scholastic pursuits prosecuted in the absence of these ge- 
nial, attractive influences, must always lack the vitality of 
a conscious, joyous spontaneity, and incur the hazard of bring- 
ing upon the mind an irritating sense of being in bondage to 
arbitrary rules, which, having no felt affinities for the intel- 
lectual constitution, naturally become repulsive, and provoke 
opposition rather than incite to a cheerful, productive indus- 
try. Mental aliment taken thus, without any call from the 
mental appetite, is likely to be digested imperfectly or not at 
all, and consequently to minister little to constitutional beau- 
ty, vigor, or elasticity. It is bolted under a painful sense 
of necessity or duty, in a paroxysm of resolution or despair, 
like nauseous drugs, or like the unpalatable diet prescribed 
to dyspeptics by Dr. Alcott or Mr. Graham, rather than re- 



16 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE 

ceived with gusto and gladness like the delicious morsels of 
the confectioner or the ripe fruits of early autumn, which 
every organ concerned seizes with avidity and caresses lov- 
ingly, prolonging the satisfaction as far as pleasure so fleet- 
ing can be induced to remain. It is an inevitable result that 
intellectual objects thus prosecuted under external pressure, 
without inward excitement or vocation, will become not only 
insipid, but distasteful ; and whenever the" disgust shall grow 
to be stronger than reverence for parental authority, and that 
sentiment of self-respect and shame which is commonly able 
for a time to exert a restraining influence, may we expect 
to see the swelling impatience blaze up into a revolt, and 
emancipate itself from an odious bondage to study with that 
mingled feeling of triumph and resentment which a "fugi- 
tive from labor" may be supposed to have when he finds 
himself on the safe side of Mason and Dixon's line. It seems 
to me that study carried on in such a spirit as I have sup- 
posed, even though it should continue to be prosecuted with 
considerable diligence, must obviously and inevitably fail to 
produce any considerable results. The mind, doomed to work 
under a species of constraint at problems and for reasons 
which it will not be at the pains of fully comprehending, 
usually becomes unelastic, sullen, and skeptical, and no longer 
discerns or relishes the truths evolved by the processes with 
which it is employed. Imagination, finding no genial at- 
mosphere, and " out of its element," puts off its wings, and be- 
comes somnolent and sluggish, while the powers of invention 
remain unproductive and dormant, as if chilled with perpet- 
ual winter. 

I have described the actual condition of a number of young 
men by no means deficient in good mental powers, and even 
well endowed by nature with" all the aptitudes requisite for 
high achievements in scholarship. In the strength of my 
faith that hardly any intellectual or moral default in young 
men is irretrievable, I express my conviction that there is no 



TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 17 

ground for despair, or even for serious discouragement in these 
cases, provided only we can persuade the subjects of our so- 
licitude to rise up manfully against the scandalous dictation 
of routine and accident under which they have hitherto pros- 
ecuted their scholastic labors, and resolutely subject their 
mental ailments to the curative discipline of a wise mental 
regimen. 

It is quite within the competence of sober thought, fol- 
lowed up by manly resolves and efforts, to put the springs 
of intellectual life a-going once more under a tide of vital in- 
fluences powerful and permanent. Let the victim of unre- 
flecting apathy or irresolution awaken to self-control, and 
earnestly contemplate intellectual pursuits in their manifold 
relations and connections with humanity, and with the social 
and moral obligations and the destinies of human life, and 
he will soon be made conscious of new, noble impulses well- 
ing up from the depths of a free, aspiring soul, that shall 
henceforward rejoice in its newly-discovered resources, and 
assert a spontaneous, irrepressible claim to the high dignity 
of the fullest mental development, and of the most sedulous 
mental culture. No longer in bondage to unintelligent, ar- 
bitrary routine, and freed from the humiliating discipline in- 
flicted by self-reproach and mortified pride, the mind may be 
expected to rebound, buoyant with long-suspended sponta- 
neity, conscious anew of appetencies for ingenuous pursuits, 
and of a liberal curiosity eager to be satisfied with those 
truths which constitute the sum of human knowledge, and 
which progress in its every step is ready to reveal. 

Before concluding this preliminary Lecture, allow me to* 
call your attention to the deeply interesting relations of the 
subject under consideration to the lata of habit. Habit, I 
need not inform you, is the proclivity and aptitude for any 
action or method to which we become accustomed. It is the 
result of a frequent repetition, in the same direction, of any 
movement of body or mind, and it is of such efficacy that an 



13 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE 

action, at first performed with difficulty, by the utmost exer* 
' tion of our faculties, comes to he done spontaneously, and 
with as little effort or consciousness as attends respiration or 
the circulation of the blood. Children have, at their outset 
in life, no habits. The utterance of a single word or syllable 
costs them much effort, and supposes a multitude of pains- 
taking experiments in exercising the organs of speech, and 
in imitating the articulate utterances of others. A mature 
man, on the contrary, lives, and moves, and has his being 
under the daily and hourly dominion of habit. He is, to use 
one of the pithy aphorisms in which our vernacular tongue 
so much delights to announce comprehensive truths, " a bun- 
dle of habits," " a creature of habit." All the movements of 
body and mind become habitual, and, with the progress of 
years, become more and more intensely habitual, till what 
were at first the most difficult mental efforts and the most 
elaborate achievements of art, attain to the facility and well- 
nigh to the unconsciousness of mechanical operations. It can 
not be doubted that this tendency of our nature is highly be- 
neficent. It greatly diminishes the friction of life by gradual- 
ly dispensing with the painful outlay of attention and effort, 
which are indispensable in the incipient stages and endeavors 
of all progress in knowledge and art, and it offers the most 
sustaining encouragements to strenuous exertions, in provid- 
ing that good aspirations and persevering efforts shall grow 
into virtues and permanent forces under the conservative 
power of a great constitutional law. We are to remember, 
however, that habit, though often a beneficent master, is ai- 
rways despotic when once it has established its sway. We 
are free to choose what habits shall reign over us, but not to 
reject a dominion eminently legitimate and natural, since it 
has grown up with us from chidhood, and been deliberately 
invested with supreme authority by the consent and usage of 
' our entire history. In laying the foundations of this powerful 
omnipresent domination, youth enacts statutes for age, and 



TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 19 

the boy is law-giver to the man. If it were desirable, it is 
yet impossible to reverse this order of events, and transfer 
from the inexperience and the recklessness of mere boyhood 
to the discretion of riper years a trust so precious and so 
deeply interesting to the individual and to the race in all 
their stages of progress. None, however, can resist or evade 
this fundamental law which Nature has impressed upon the 
race, and I am wholly unable to suggest for the consideration 
of young men, engaged from day to day in fashioning a life- 
long and even an eternal destiny, a more powerful or a more 
philosophical motive of conduct than is proposed in the poten- 
cy and the permanence of this irreversible decree of heaven. 
What inducements have they to scrutinize their position, and 
fully to comprehend its liabilities, as well as the great ad- 
vantages which this law of habit unquestionably affords for 
the attainment of high intellectual and moral excellence ? 
The middle-aged and the old have comparatively little in- 
terest in such an investigation. For them the omnipotent 
past has already fixed its impress upon the current and all 
coming time. The intellect has already received its press- 
ure and its hue from opportunities, well or ill improved, long 
since gone, but still working potently in the character and in 
the destiny which it was their mission to fashion and control. 
For the young, the present is all-powerful, and it offers its 
resources and plastic skill to establish in their behalf, over 
all the expanse of the future, the dominion of intelligence 
and virtue. They now preside over the solemn council, in 
obedience to which intellect and character are to be mold- 
ed. They are incessantly employed in weaving the web of. 
their own destiny, and every throw of the shuttle draw's after 
it a thread, which may become a clew to guide them through 
life's labyrinths, or a boding symbol of the dismal catastrophe 
appointed for all who impiously leave to blind Chance and 
envious Fate the control of interests which Heaven intrusts 
to each human bein" for himself. 



20 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE 

Do we ask too much of young men occupying a position 
of such marvelous influence, where misdirected effort and ig- 
noble sloth alike entail upon the mental and moral character 
ineffaceable deformities and irretrievable disabilities, when we 
beseech them to ponder well the paths in which they shall 
elect to walk : to examine with jealous scrutiny their reaso?is 
for pursuing the course of life in which they find themselves 
engaged, and for the maxims or the accidents which really 
guide them to the exclusion of a juster, sounder philosophy ? 
Noiv, these moving forces and guiding lights may be modified 
and rearranged at pleasure. All the mind's powers and fac- 
ulties are now subject to the reason, and susceptible of new 
impressions — of taking new directions and a new inspiration. 
They are already beginning to part with this power of self- 
transformation and control. The sphere of this free action 
is gradually contracting by the growth of habit, and the 
mental constitution is constantly tending to a state of fixed- 
ness and pertinacious resistance to all ameliorating changes. 

We do not borrow these lessons of admonition and warn- 
ing from divine revelation, but from mental laws universally 
recognized, and from experience which is verified in the his- 
tory of every individual of our race. Under the benignant 
religious economy which offers its remedies and its aids to 
reformatory efforts in every stage of life, the morals and de- 
linquencies of youth, however great or pernicious, are not ir- 
retrievable. For early offenses against our intellectual na 
ture, however, heaven has provided no such antidote, noi 
has human sagacity ever been able to discover a substitute 
for those mental habits and aptitudes which a thoughtful, 
painstaking industry will secure for the young, but which are 
forfeited absolutely and forever by the indolence that will not 
toil, and the sottishness that will not think. "We do not 
transcend the sobriety of a measured and cautious phraseol 
ogy in affirming that the youthful student has proffered to 
him, in his actual opportunities, once for all, the key of knowl 



TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 21 

edge, and that his position necessitates the making of a choice 
which will open before him a luminous way to the dignity 
and consolations of the true philosophy, and to the yet highei 
dignity and consolations of putting forth a beneficent influ- 
ence in behalf of the interests of humanity, or which shall 
consign him to a very different career, where the faculties will, 
indeed, find a spontaneous development without the toil of 
diligent culture, but such a development as permanently dis- 
qualifies the human being for the purest, highest enjoyments 
and occupations — as degrades the higher and gives suprem- 
acy to the lower tastes and aspirations of the soul, and effect- 
ually paralyzes the energies intrusted to us for accomplishing 
the good work which God has placed us upon this earth to 
perform. 

Whoever, then, has been smitten with a laudable ambi- 
tion to sow the seeds of intelligence in the human mind, to 
mold its divine capabilities into graceful forms and symmet- 
rical proportions, to nurture its crude energies and give them 
a salutary direction, does well to remember that the season 
for sowing is no less important than the soil. He should take 
his position at the threshold of academic life, and make haste 
to pour his redeeming, loving counsels into the willing ear 
of the youthful aspirant for literary culture before it is pre- 
occupied by other less competent advisers — while the feelings 
are fresh and the heart buoyant. 

The larger portion of a scholastic community are, perhaps, 
likely to be moved by impulses of sufficient strength to over- 
come any antagonism which the youth of feebler purpose is 
too often called to encounter on less advantageous terms. 
Among the better influences which mingle with a literary 
atmosphere, the unsuspecting neophyte is likely to come 
under some temptations to embrace fallacious theories of col- 
lege life, which have descended from the past through no 
very trustworthy channels, along with other doubtful tradi- 
tions, and which usually find in each generation of students a 



22 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING, ETC. 

few zealous champions and expounders. This very inconsid- 
erable sect is distinguished chiefly by a most unwarranta- 
ble faith in the efficacy of external circumstances. It trust- 
fully confides mental culture and illumination to the genii 
of academic groves — a set of plastic agencies, latent, indeed, 
but presumed to be ever active, and to the lights reflected by 
the intellectual constellation upon which, whenever his eyes 
are open, the student is compelled to gaze. It deprecates 
as the student's chief danger the damage done to brilliant 
genius, and especially to the imagination, by too much devo- 
tion to study. Against the injustice of contemporary aca- 
demic opinion, which is seldom very favorable to their pre 
tensions, these poetical persons make a confident appeal to 
the future — the predestined theatre of achievements in states- 
manship and eloquence, such as in their day may, with some 
show of reason, lay claim to the honor of inspiration, since 
they must appear to be the result of an educational process 
utterly incomprehensible and transcendental. I do not pro- 
pose an encounter with the doctrines of this class of light- 
hearted aspirants for literary eminence, but it seems not in- 
appropriate to bestow upon them this passing notice. Even 
indolence and mental eccentricity acquire a measure of re- 
spectability by professing to have a reason for their follies, 
and the few representatives of the theory adverted to still 
to be found, I fear, in all literary institutions, contrive to make 
their proselytes and so to keep up the succession by present- 
ing their crudities to unwary and inexperienced youth in the 
dignified and pretentious guise of a logical theory. 

I propose on another occasion to exhibit some of the philo- 
sophical reasons why the student should aspire to the attain- 
ment of thorough liberal education. 



MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION, ETC. 2o 



LECTURE II. 

MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF LIBERAL STUDIES. 

Nature and proper Function of Motives. — Treatment of first Principles 
necessarily Metaphysical. — Arguments from no other Source so lum- 
inous and satisfactory. — False Theories adopted by some Students 
relative to their own Capabilities. — Causes of their Adoption: Indo 
leuce ; imperfect mastery of elementary Principles. — The Remedy. — 
Various types of Mind. — Difference between Motives which do and 
which ought to control. — The power of Motive not arbitrary. — Men 
have power to control the Motives that control them. — Selection of 
the Motive Forces. — They should be pure, permanent, elevating. — 
Difference between voluntary and involuntary Motives. — Unworthy 
and inadequate Motives ; a desire to escape more laborious Occupa- 
tions ; dread of Disgrace ; the gratification of parental Pride; Emula 
tion ; Ambition : the two last, however, not to be discarded as purely 
mischievous. — Ambition distinguishable from Emulation, but liable 
to the same Objection. — Characteristics of an ambitious College- 
Student. 

In my introductory Lecture I announced, in terms more 
comprehensive, perhaps, than definite and intelligible, as the 
intended subject of some further discussion, " the Theory and 
Practice of Scholastic Life." To illustrate the importance 
to the student of comprehending the philosophy of his daily 
occupations, I referred to the pursuits of common laborious 
life, which, no less than the sciences and more liberal arts, 
are dependent on certain principles, a knowledge of which is 
indispensable to their successful prosecution. It is for want 
of the education and mental activity requisite for the at- 
tainment of such humble degrees of theoretical lore that 
foreigners prove so greatly inferior to our better-instructed 
native population in all but the lowest employments. Ac- 
quaintance with the "theory" of the student's life is no less 
necessary to the satisfaction than it is to the success of the as- 



24 MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF 

pirant for intellectual culture. Without sucli induction into 
first principles, the business of education becomes a drudge- 
ry, repulsive to the tastes of the young, who no longer make 
much proficiency in the acquisition of knowledge after the 
mind has lost the support and the alleviation of its own? spon- 
taneous sympathies. -I also adverted to the great practical 
importance of an early familiarity with first principles, in an- 
ticipation of adverse habits, which speedily interfere with the 
mind's freedom and ductility, and render impracticable, or, 
at least, exceedingly difficult and slow, the adoption of any 
improvement or activity in any new direction or method. I 
did not allow myself to doubt that my statements and argu- 
ments, here repeated in a very summary way, would be re- 
ceived by my intelligent audience as satisfactory and con- 
clusive, and yet I did not think it superfluous to admonish 
the inexperienced student of the existence in our colleges of 
an ancient theory, antagonistic to mine, which presses phi- 
losophy into the ignoble service of indolence, and offers dis- 
suasives from laborious methodical study, to a certain class 
of minds so plausible and soothing that they may be in some 
danger of suspecting repose, and not labor, to be the chief con- 
dition of success in college life. 

It is the assigned business of the present occasion to sug- 
gest for your consideration the motives which invite an in- 
genuous young man to devote himself to liberal studies, and 
which, in all the toil and solicitude incident to his chosen 
career, are ready to minister their unfailing impulses for his 
support and consolation. "With the hope of enhancing the 
usefulness of this discussion of the true theory of scholastic 
life, I will venture to occupy a few moments with some pre- 
liminary remarks upon the nature and proper functions of 
motives. In the estimation of an auditory of thoughtful, in- 
quisitive young men, devoted to intellectual pursuits, it will 
be no disparagement to such remarks that they are essential- 
ly metaphysical in their character. 



LIBERAL STUDIES. 25 

The treatment of first principles, in order to be of any val- 
ue, and worthy the attention of a student, must always be 
metaphysical ; and it is a reflection upon the real intelligence 
and manliness of a cultivated mind to anticipate that it may 
be found to lack the capacity or the taste to deal with those 
fundamental propositions which are the sources of all just 
reasoning and all wise theories. I will add that, to a mind 
really intent on improvement, and willing to rouse itself to 
the exercise of its highest powers, no arguments are so lum- 
inous and satisfactory — none are so'full of the germs of prac- 
tical wisdom and available results as those which, under the 
name of metaphysics, are often lost upon the multitude, not 
so much because they are found to be incomprehensible, as 
because they are decided, without examination, to be so much 
unmeaning, impertinent jargon, not worth the easy effort of 
attention which it would take to understand them. I would 
earnestly premonish those who hear me that they can not 
admit into the mind a conclusion more essentially false than 
this, or more fatally pernicious in its influence upon their 
future career as students and scholars. Never, young gen- 
tlemen, never make to yourselves the cowardly concession 
that you are unequal to the tasks which scientific and philo- 
sophical investigations impose upon you. No slander upon 
your intellectual claims and dignity could be more gratuitous 
or unjust. Admitting that Nature has bestowed her gifts 
upon you with only her ordinary liberality, she has yet fur- 
nished every sound mind with powers and faculties quite 
adequate to the solution of all the questions, metaphysioal, 
moral, and scientific, which a course of collegiate study is 
likely to suggest. To affirm of a mind that it is incapable of 
understanding any proposition upon which it has opportunity 
to bestow a careful investigation, is to pronounce that mind 
imbecile or insane, or to declare that proposition illogical or 
false. 

To discover new truths, ox to originate improved methods 
B 



26 MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF 

for the elucidation or application of truths already known, by 
efforts of high analysis or subtile combinations, is conceded to 
only a few rare intellects, which shine forth upon the world at 
the rate of hardly two or three in a generation. To compre- 
hend the truth already divulged, and the method elaborated 
and made luminous to our hand by others, is only to exercise 
a function common to all sane minds. Such minds do, in vir- 
tue of their constitution and original gifts, possess aptitudes 
for ascertaining and understanding truth. Between them and 
all truth there are natural affinities, as really as such rela 
lions exist between the organs of digestion and wholesome 
food. As inability to receive nutritious edibles is to be tak 
en as evidence of bodily infirmity or of disease, so incapacity 
to learn and comprehend the truths concerned in scientific 
and philosophical studies demonstrates an abnormal condition 
of the intellect, which, whether it verges more toward fatu- 
ity or lunacy, must be treated as an exception to a general 
law. I trust I shall not be regarded as uttering a paradox 
in place of sober convictions which observation and experi- 
ence have wrought in my own mind, for there is really no 
fact connected with intellectual culture hi regard to which I 
am more thoroughly satisfied.' A number of students^ I am 
quite aware, embrace a very different theory in regard to 
their own capabilities. They have had the voluntary hu- 
mility to conclude that Nature has denied them the intellect- 
ual attributes requisite to the successful prosecution of cer- 
tain branches of study embraced in every academic course, 
and, in a spirit of dutiful obedience to so high a behest, they 
give up the conflict with their invito, Minerva with a yield- 
ing acquiescence so ready and even forward, that we are 
liable to mistake it sometimes for inordinate complacency. 
Such cases, when they really involve any serious difficulty, 
are explicable in one of two ways. The inability is the pro- 
duct, not the cause of this humiliating conclusion, and only 
becomes incurable in alliance with the indolence which dis- 



LIBERAL STUDIES. 27 



couragement and irresolution very soon engender ; or it has 
resulted from the neglect or the imperfect mastery of ele- 
mentary principles, which hold to the unmanageable prob- 
lems that now overwhelm the fainting spirit the relation of 
indispensable, producing antecedents. A patient, thorough 
revision of early studies never fails to relax the noose, and, 
at the expense of some manly exertion, gives a good deliver- 
ance from one of the most stifling suspicions that can obtain 
a place in the mind of an ingenuous young man — the sus- 
picion that Nature, in the paucity of her gifts, has predes- 
tined him to be, at least in some of the phases of his mental 
development, an irretrievable dunce. It is not intended, in 
what is here put forth, to call in question the well-established 
fact that there are great diversities in intellectual capability 
and tastes. In one type of mind, imagination ; in another, 
memory ; in a third, taste is the most noticeable peculiarity ; 
and the predominance of either of these is favorable to suc- 
cess in the prosecution of its congenial branch of study, and 
may become the basis of a special predilection as well as of 
special distinction. 

In this admission, however, there is nothing inconsistent 
with the general principle here inculcated, that every sound 
mind, whatever be its predominant characterizing faculty, 
has that capacity which distinguishes man as man, and 
makes him a rational being, and not a brute — the faculty of 
perceiving and understanding truth— all truth, whether sci- 
entific, or moral, or historical.. 

Let us now return from this digression, which has, at least, 
the merit of being eminently practical in its suggestions, and 
of harmonizing perfectly with our main object. ,Y° U w iU 
have been better prepared, by this brief interruption, to re- 
ceive the few remarks in which I proposed to indulge upon 
the nature and proper function of motives, in so far as they are 
concerned in the pursuits and the proficiency of the student 

All incentives to activity and industry, whether internal 



28 MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF 

or from without, are motives, but our concern lies rather with 
those which should direct an upright mind in the prosecution 
of a scholastic career, than with the impulses and accidents 
which may actually constitute its moving forces. It will oc- 
cur, on a slight degree of reflection, that here is a very suf- 
ficient ground for distinction, and that it suggests to the stu- 
dent a classification of motives not only very remarkable in 
itself, but very worthy of being heeded in his pursuits. On 
philosophical no less than on moral grounds, it is an instruct- 
ive as well as a deeply-interesting occupation to compare the 
motives which actually control us with those which have a 
natural claim to this supremacy. Such a habit of inquisi- 
tive introspection early established contains the germ of all 
improvements, and offers the surest pledge of excellence. It 
is the teaching of a shallow mental philosophy that the pow- 
er of motive is arbitrary, and that the mind spontaneously 
yields to the strongest. 

On all moral questions, at least, abundant experience de- 
monstrates the unsoundness of such a dogma. We are al- 
ways surrounded with human beings, who, for indulgences 
confessedly the lowest and the most worthless, are content to 
sacrifice interests felt and aekndWledged by themselves to 
possess the highest dignity and importance. These men are 
entirely competent to control the motives that control them, 
and to submit their lives to the governance of a better moral 
dynasty, or else they must stand acquitted of all dishonor, as 
well as guilt, in the eye of reason no less than of righteous- 
ness. The laws of our nature indulge us with an option in 
regard to the moving forces to which we intrust our moral 
destiny, and the complexion of that destiny will find its de- 
velopment in the wisdom or folly that presides over that mo- 
mentous choice. To affirm that the motives which preside 
over our scholastic career are equally controlling in impress- 
ing a fixed character upon the intellect, might savor of ex- 
aggeration, but it is quite within the limits of moderation and 



LIBERAL STUDIES. 29 

truth to assign to them a. high predominating influence, not 
to be overlooked in a philosophical estimate of the conditions 
most favorable to intellectual improvement, nor to be prac- 
tically neglected without incurring consequences highly per- 
nicious, if not fatal to all reasonable hopes of success ; 

The youthful votary of intellectual pursuits has this ad- 
vantage in the selection of moving forces to which his oc- 
cupations shall be subjected, that he has little occasion to 
. provide against the disturbing influence of the passions, which 
constitute elements of the greatest difficulty in the formation 
of moral character. There is, indeed, an ethical side to the 
scholastic question, but as I propose to. treat the subject in 
its intellectual aspects only, I shall not dwell upon moral 
considerations except in the single point of view in which 
they assume the character of philosophical arguments, and 
so become available as motives or as means for the promo- 
tion of mental improvement. 

It is of the highest import to the student who aspires to 
the best mental developments and culture, that he puts him- 
self, at the outset, in communication with motives the most 
pure and elevating, and such as are, at the same time, per- 
manent in their operation. I have already vindicated his 
entire freedom of choice, and his unrestricted power to place 
himself under such motive influences as his own judgment 
shall approve. In default, however, of this voluntary exer- 
cise of his own discretion, he will find that surrounding cir- 
cumstances or sheer accident have supplied the deficiency, 
and that he is already in motion, though little suspecting, it 
may be, the agencies to which he is indebted for overcoming 
his tendencies to congenial repose. 

The characteristic difference between the motives which 
u thoughtful man voluntarily chooses to rule over him, and 
those which, in the absence of such a choice, volunteer to in- 
stall themselves as rulers, resides in the fact that the former 
operate chiefly by attraction, the latter mostly by irr pulsion ; 



30 MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF 

the first exciting and quickening, the other forcing and stun« 
ning the mind's energies. The first is a vitalizing process, 
which imparts to the mind new vigor and capabilities anal- 
ogous to the power which the body derives from wholesome 
food and exercise. The other likewise produces motion, but 
its force is mostly exhausted in overcoming the vis inertice, 
and, acting wholly from without, has no power to correct any 
inherent tendencies to indolence and inactivity. 

Suppose a young man to enter college with no definite ob- 
ject or stirring ambition beyond the desire of effecting an es- 
cape from more laborious occupations, or of postponing for 
some time longer his yet doubtful choice of the business 01 
profession which is to employ his riper years, and you are 
very likely to find in him a palpable illustration of the met 
aphysical doctrine we are just now discussing. To him the 
force of institutional laws, and the cogent demands of the 
recitation-room, will probably become chief incitements to ac- 
tivity. A laudable self-respect, which shrinks from the neg- 
lect or violation of laws and usages, which he has given a 
tacit pledge to observe — a not unmanly pride which rel- 
ishes discomfiture in the presence of classmates somewhat 
less than it does the labor of preparation, are, perhaps, the 
highest principles of action which can be expected in the cir- 
cumstances supposed. These, it will be observed, do not pro- 
pose excellence, but impunity, as the chief object of pursuit. 
They demand no forecast, no reference to remote or general 
interests, however urgent or weighty. To shun petty evils, 
that mingle a measure of discomfort with the satisfaction of 
the next dinner, or dash the evening's hilarity with a slight 
mortification, or disturb the night's repose with some faint 
whispers of self-reproach — this becomes the habitual and only 
incitement to mental activity, and it may suffice to keep'the 
mind from absolute stagnation so long as the dread of shame 
is stronger than the dislike for study. As, however, the op- 
eration of unworthy motives always tends to enfeeble and 



LIEERAL STUDIES. 31 

blunt the sensibility on which they aet, the controlling in- 
fluence soon passes over from the less to the more humilia- 
ting of these conflicting alternatives, and the sentiment of 
self-respect declines to a point where the largest amount of 
shame which indolence can inflict is esteemed more tolera- 
ble than the smallest amount of intellectual toil which will 
save the falling spirit from the pity or the ridicule of his com- 
panions. In this utter failure of the only motives which our 
supposition embraces, mental activity declines to its mini- 
mum, and the victim of our metaphysical experiment is left 
a mere caput mortuum, which can only be reanimated with 
intellectual life by the breath of a loftier inspiration. 

If, in place of the utter destitution of decided impulses to- 
ward liberal studies which characterizes the ease we now 
dismiss from our consideration, the student comes from the 
lower schools, and from the bosom of an affectionate family, 
animated with a desire so to perform his newly-assumed du- 
ties as may satisfy parental pride and home expectations, it 
will be readily admitted that, in this tangible and positive 
principle of action, he asserts the dignity of an independent 
choice, and repels the tyranny which, as we have seen, cir- 
cumstances never fail to exercise over those who lack the 
wisdom and manliness needful to self-government. Such a 
motive to intellectual efforts commands our respect from the 
amiable sentiments from which it springs, and it has a fair 
prospect of finding a good degree of permanence and strength 
in the strength and permanence of the affections in which it 
has its origin and support. It is to be observed, however, 
that the impulses which produce, and the satisfactions that 
attend mental efforts made on such grounds, have no natural 
or philosophical connection with science and literature — none- 
whatever with the intellectual culture and discipline which, 
in every enlightened course of education, the study of these 
is designed to promote. The filial sentiment acting in this 
direction is rather a moral than an intellectual force, and it 



32 MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OP 

.perhaps partakes yet more largely of the nature of an in- 
stinct. It is not adapted to awaken in the mind the love of 
knowledge, or to excite enthusiasm in the pursuits of science 
and letters. Aspiring solely to satisfy the demands of parent- 
al affection, its highest aims are achieved when that object 
is reached. Now a little experience and observation will con- 
vince the most incredulous that it is no very high standard 
of attainment — no very difficult achievement in the strife of 
intellect, that a father's partiality and a mother's love are 
wont to prescribe for a darling son. In the large majority of 
cases, almost any degree of indolence and ignorance is found 
compatible with a transcendent home-reputation, and the 
dunce of the college is installed by acclamation the oracle 
of the fireside. It is no unnatural result of working on such 
an insufficient basis that astute diplomacy and plausible rhe- 
torical statements are resorted to, in preference to hard study, 
as the means of quieting parental solicitudes, 'and, provided 
this point of satisfaction is actually attained, the motive in 
question, as it is found to exist in some minds, is also satis- 
fied. It is the common besetment of all low incitements to 
mental labor that, acting exclusively ab extra, they open no 
sources of internal power — they excite no inward craving 
after knowledge — develop in the mind itself no inspiring con- 
sciousness of a vocation to search out and to know the mani- 
fold truths with which God has peopled the teeming universe 
of matter and of mind. > 

A far more effective principle of action, though perhaps of 
a more questionable morality, does that student adopt who 
aims, not at excellence in the abstract, but to excel his fel- 
lows in the race of improvement. In the permanence of its 
influence, in intensity, and in restless vigilance and activity, 
I incline to regard emulation as the most reliable of that en- 
tire class of motives which, because they possess no affinities 
for either the subjects or objects with which education is con- 
cerned, and rather impel the mind by a species of force ab- 



LIBERAL STUDIES. 63 

horrent to its instincts, than attract it onward by the promise 
of growth and of revelations congenial to its awakened curi- 
osity, I have denominated unphilosophical. In not a few in- 
stall 3es that have fallen under our observation, very respect 
able scholarship has been attained, the apparent result of 
aspirations which sought their highest gratification in the 
triumph over rivals, and in the applauses of the scholastic 
community. A motive which, it must be confessed, is in its 
nature neither philosophical nor moral, which is sadly de- 
fective in comprehensiveness, and in all general philanthro- 
phy, is often found sufficient, by the constancy and intensity 
of the stimulus which administers, to sustain, through a series 
of years, an incessant mental activity. Incidentally, too, in 
the absence of other guides and safeguards, and as the fruit 
of constant occupation and industrious habits, it sometimes 
performs the yet higher function of exercising a conservative 
guardianship over the moral character. 

In view of these eminent services actually rendered both 
to scholarship and good morals, I have never been able to 
sympathize with the efforts which have been made, mostly 
on theoretical grounds, to discourage and discard emulation 
as an influence purely mischievous, and not to be tolerated in 
institutions of learning. It is unquestionably the duty and 
the interest of the student to prosecute his scholastic labors, 
no less than to conduct his life, on grounds most favorable 
to a high development of his mental and moral capabilities. 
To the same results should the teacher's co-operative efforts 
and counsels be directed ; but we are bound to remember, as 
the conclusion which all experience inculcates, that the agen- 
cy of the pupil, and not that of the teacher, is wont to control 
in this latent and preliminary adjustment of the springs of 
mental activity. That young man is in precisely the best 
position for intellectual improvement who is most strongly 
urged on by the purest, highest motives ; and he is in pre- 
cisely the worst position who, in the absence of all strong 
B 2 



o4 MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF 

impulses, internal or from without, and conscious of no voca- 
tion, abandons himself to the ministry of circumstances, the 
experimentmn criccis of whatever of skill, invention, pa- 
tience, and other graces may he found in the instructor. Un- 
questionably we should choose, if the option were allowed 
us, to conciliate for such a case of mental prostration the re- 
viving, invigorating influences of the purest and highest mo- 
tives. I think, too, we should rejoice at the symptoms of 
returning animation produced by causes and methods of 
treatment less approved, and that we should be thankful 
even for the accident, or the most questionable nostrum, that 
should become our auxiliary in the accomplishment of such 
an amelioration. It is of the highest importance, and the 
first thing to. be attempted, that by some means we get the 
becalmed, stranded craft in motion. . Once afloat, it may, 
perchance, be conducted where we list, and so be wafted on 
to the accomplishment of its high adventure by healthful or 
even heavenly gales. 

"Without dwelling farther upon the moral quality of emu- 
lation, I will add, what has probably occurred to you already, 
that it has no special inherent aptitudes as a motive to intel- 
lectual pursuits. It generates no love of knowledge — no ge- 
nial appetencies for what is beautiful, and harmonious, and 
true in the vast, fruitful field of research, and thought, and 
spiritual enjoyment, which education, in its best sense, stands 
pledged to open to the expanding soul. It is even more at 
home, and operates with more intensity and directness upon 
the speed of a foot-race or the muscle of a wrestling ring, 
than it does in stimulating the mind in its researches, or in 
its processes of reasoning. 

Ambition, which is very distinguishable from emulation, 
and should, I think, be regarded a more respectable, if not a 
more effective motive to mental exertion, is yet liable to every 
one of the objections which have just been enumerated. It 
has the advantage of a broader horizon, and of courting dis- 



LIBERAL STUDIES. 38 

tine lions under such conditions as imply no superiority that 
may awaken a pang of regret or provoke an envious emotion 
in the bosom of associates in the race of mental improvement, 
but it is yet less favorable than emulation to thorough and 
symmetrical culture. It is wont to be impatient in its aspi- 
rations, to outgrow and slight the necessary conditions of all 
eminent success in scholastic pursuits. It is prone- to strike 
out into some eccentric course, to indulge a silly favoritism in 
reference to branches of study deemed most popular or best 
suited to some imaginary specialty of mental structure, or to 
the professional pursuits or public objects to which the life is 
in purpose devoted. The result of all this is a one-sided 
culture and an ill-balanced intellect. 

Students in college who are denominated ambitious, in the 
sense here set forth, are apt to be characterized by a certain 
magnificence of mental bearing not very practical nor very 
teachable. The magnitude of their plans and the exorbi- 
tance of their expectations have a tendency to awaken in 
them a sentiment of rather arrogant indifference for the very 
unpretending pursuits of the student's daily life. A taste is 
generated which rejoices more in solving massive problems 
in statesmanship and polemics than in projectiles or Greek. 
Rapid growth and early maturity are chiefly desiderated. 
Glowing eloquence and an imposing style of composition, be- 
cause they are regarded as indispensable to a brilliant pub- 
lic career, are assiduously cultivated in debating clubs and 
by miscellaneous reading, in forgetfulness of the fundamental 
law which denies such gifts as these to mere desultory appli- 
cation and per saltum efforts. 

Our next Lecture shall be devoted to the consideration of 
some more healthful and affluent sources of intellectual im- 
provement 



36 PROPER INCENTIVES TO 



LECTURE III. 

PROPER INCENTIVES TO HIGH INTELLECTUAL ATTAIN 

MENTS. 

Difficulties in the Student's Career not greater than they should be.— 
A Mind not Insane or Imbecile is competent to overcome them.— 
Analogy between the Cultivation of the Mental and the Moral Pow 
ers. — The Dictates of Conscience. — Proper Incentives to a thorough 
Education must fulfill two indispensable Conditions : Congeniality to 
the Mind and Permanency in their Influence. — A Desire to develop 
and cultivate the Intellect. — The Connection of the Motive with the 
End of Intellectual Pursuits. — On this Principle, the attempt .to learn 
is itself Success, and every Obstacle overcome is a Triumph. — The 
Student is preparing not only for Temporal Enjoyments, but for the 
Cycles of Eternal Being. — The Mental no less than the Moral Char- 
acter receives ineffaceable Impressions in the present Life. — Curios- 
ity as a Motive. — Its Function analogous to that of the Appetite. — Its 
Suggestions always to be heeded. — Difference in this Respect be- 
tween a Wise Man and a Fool. — Curiosity as tending to produce an 
earnest love of Truth for its own Sake. — Mental Habitudes of New- 
ton and of Washington. — Admonitory Caution. 

I will presume, young gentlemen, that you retain some 
recollection of the preliminary remarks with which I intro- 
duced my last Lecture. Anticipating the necessity of employ- 
ing terms and methods of exposition which might awaken 
apprehension in some minds cherishing an instinctive horror 
of any the slightest savor of abstraction, I thought it well to 
detain you a few moments in order to expose the true char- 
acter of a prejudice at once so unreasonable and so pernicious. 
I am sure that I succeeded in convincing all who listened at- 
tentively, that there is no obstacle to the successful prosecu- 
tion of the student's objects more common or more really con- 
temptible than the tacit conclusion before which so many 
hearts grow faint, that there are studies, no matter whethei 



HIGH INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS 3/ 

physical, metaphysical, or scientific, at the advent of which 
ordinary genius may indulge misgivings, and even shun the 
conflict without just reproach or shame. In following me in 
the subsequent discussion, each earnest listener became sat- 
isfied, I trust, of what such seekers after knowledge will al- 
ways find, that in every branch of study embraced in the 
academic course, the difficulties which beset the student's 
career are not more or greater than they should be, in order 
to due mental exertion and discipline, not greater than yield 
readily to patient, intelligent endeavor, and that any mind, 
with the ordinary outfit of faculties neither imbecile nor in- 
sane, is competent to the mastery of all the problems which 
our curriculum of liberal study imposes upon it. 

I inculcated as of fundamental importance that, in addi- 
tion to a fit elementary preparation, the aspirant for intellect- 
ual culture should come to his chosen work under the au- 
spices of manly aims and efficient impulses. I endeavored to 
exhibit the insufficiency of some of the motives, and the bad 
working of others, under whose dormant influences a number 
of young men are engaged, with various degrees of success, 
in attempting to discharge the grave, far-reaching duties of 
their actual position. "What we have found most reason to 
condemn in the motive principles which have already passed 
under review, is their want of inherent adaptation to act 
upon the intellectual nature of man. Besides being partial 
and inconstant in their operation, they act upon the mind as 
an external, gross agency, impelling and coercing rather than 
vitalizing and invigorating its dormant, untrained energies, 
and drawing them into the sphere of manifold attractions 
and delights where spontaneity and inspiration hold their 
sway. We now proceed to consider sorrie of those genial in- 
fluences, deemed by us to be more fit and potent incentives 
for the student who aspires to accomplish an honorable ca- 
reer, and covets the dignity and the efficiency of being guided 
by his own enlightened principles. 



38 PROPER. INCENTIVES TO 

Were we called upon to furnish maxims adapted to the 
wants of a young man earnestly intent on the most perfect 
development and culture of his moral instead of his intel- 
lectual nature, we certainly should not hesitate to announce to 
him, as a fundamental principle, a scrupulous and universal 
obedience to enlightened conscience. Every part of his con- 
duct, every act of his outward life, must recognize this su- 
preme authority — must satisfy, and must aim to satisfy, the 
demand of this inward, all-potent monitor. In so far as we 
were successful in the inculcation of these first principles, 
should we confidently predict a rapid advancement in virtue 
and a vigorous manifestation of the moral faculty. " Obey 
the holy authority — satisfy the natural wants of conscience," 
should be our comprehensive formula to guide the inquirer to 
the highest moral achievements, and, with no less certainty, 
to the highest moral power. This, or some thing equivalent 
to this, would be the prescription of every intelligent, upright 
moralist ; and every intelligent inquirer after the way of duty 
would accord unhesitating assent to the soundness of this ad- 
vice. It is by no means certain, however, that he would give 
heed to it beyond such acknowledgments. It is even prob- 
able that he would set about the formation of virtuous hab- 
its and virtuous principles on some other theory. He would 
very likely take for his standard of morals the principles and 
the conduct of those with whom he associates most intimate- 
ly. Or, coveting popular favor, he would allow the maxims 
and customs most prevalent in the community to impose law 
upon him. If he more desired the reputation of exalted vir- 
tues, then his effort would probably take a special direction, 
and he would only be satisfied when the splendor of his own 
performances should make him conspicuous above the mul- 
titude, or even above all competitors in this goodly race of 
Pharisaism. 

Now, whatever may be the success of these experiments 
— and it would be easy to modify the form of such attempts 



HIGH INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENT. . 39 

indefinitely — it will be true of them all, that, conducted on 
such principles, they can have no power or tendency to ele- 
vate or strengthen the moral principles. The outward life 
may be improved to a degree of excellency and renown that 
shall provoke envy or emulation. A high reputation may 
be won, and all the conditions of an external morality be sat- 
isfied. Still, the problem with which we started lacks solu- 
tion. Conscience has not once been taken into the account 
in all these manifold experiments. The development and 
culture of the moral nature really has not been the aim of 
any one of so many efforts, nor has it been directly advanced 
in all of this strenuous endeavor to secure the outward ad- 
vantages of virtue by the manifestation of so many of its im- 
posing forms. It is even probable that the moral sense Las 
been enfeebled, and that the moral character has actually 
deteriorated by this homage to worldly motives, and this cor- 
rupting dominancy of worldly policy. 

Without claiming for the analogy here developed an unre- 
stricted application to the subject now under consideration, I 
must yet be allowed to think that the intellectual question 
finds here a very palpable and instructive illustration. As, 
in the moral experiment, reforms conducted on principles 
which can not aspire to the claim of being either just or 
virtuous, produce valuable amelioration, so the maxims and 
motives which we have condemned as having no natural af- 
finity with the intellectual wants, and as being, on that ac- 
count, utterly incapable of reaching the highest ends of libera' 
education, do nevertheless, in the absence of better auspices, 
perform a useful though inferior function. 

In order to their efficiency, our incitements to the prose- 
cution of a course of liberal studies stand pledged to the ful- 
fillment of two indispensable conditions. They must be con- 
genial with the mind itself, and they must be permanent 
in their influence. Such a motive is a desire to develop 
and cultivate the intellectual nature. 



40 « PROPER INCENTIVES TO 

You will recollect that ambition, emulation, respect for 
parents, dread of shame or of penalties, do not propose intel- 
lectual development as an end, but only as the means of se- 
curing other ends — power, praise, superiority, impunity. The 
intellectual accomplishment is thus degraded into an instru- 
ment for the gratification of appetites and desires, which a 
higher intelligence ever deems it wise to restrain rather than 
indulge. In conceding to mental culture the dignity of an 
ultimate and sufficient end, .to which all other utilities are 
to be esteemed as mere accidents of very secondary import, 
we place the whole intellectual movement in a higher posi- 
tion, fortified with all possible securities against discomfiture, 
and furnished with the best guarantees of ultimate success. 
Conducted on any lower principle, the enterprise must needs 
thrive or languish with the varying force of the motive pow- 
er, and must utterly fail whenever the ambition, or the em- 
ulation, or the filial reverence shall have exhausted their 
energies. This immediate, philosophical connection of the 
motive with the end of our mental occupation, offers the ad- 
ditional advantage of insuring a measure of success to every 
endeavor after mental improvement. "When the culture is 
sought as the means of gratifying pride, or ambition, or ava- 
rice, the educational enterprise is in some measure exposed 
to all the vicissitudes of the interests which, it aims to sub- 
serve. As pride, and ambition, and avarice are usually dis- 
appointed in their aims, their degraded auxiliary shares the 
same fortunes. Rescued from this ignominious servitude, 
each intellectual effort must be crowned with success, be- 
cause each contributes something to the amount of intellect- 
ual strength and resources. The desire which prompted the 
effort receives its proper gratification, and so acquires perpet- 
ually new vigor from sources independent of all extraneous 
or accidental causes. In the race of emulation or ambition, 
the inferior or the less prepared mind is doomed to endless 
disappointments, just because it works on a principle as un- 



HIGH INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. 41 



equal and variable as the mental powers and activities of the 
multitude whom chance has made the partners or the spec- 
tators of its toil. Working on the higher and the sounder 
principle, disappointment and failure are clearly impossible, 
since each attempt to learn and to know is so much success 
precisely of the kind, though, perhaps, not in the degree, de- 
sired. In such a progress, the motive to labor, which is con- 
genial with the mind, and wells up spontaneously from its 
native depths, grows strong, and is made fresh and vital by 
exercise. Each obstacle overcome is a triumph ; each ad 
vancing step measures so much ground won from the domain 
of ignorance, and made tributary henceforward to intellectual 
power and aggrandizement. 

Without dwelling farther upon this aspect of the subject, 
I would offer a brief suggestion in regard to the essential 
importance and dignity of the intellectual culture. A great 
deal of pedantry has no doubt been put forth on this subject, 
and a great many sage and truthful sentiments have sunk, in 
the estimation of unthinking minds, to the degradation and 
the inefficiency of trite commonplaces, for no other reason 
than because their intrinsic, inexhaustible importance has 
exalted them to the dignity of oft-reiterated axioms. It can 
never be impertinent, however, to remind an assemblage of 
youthful students that their daily and nightly toils, often 
wearisome and sometimes irksome, are actually, though slow- 
ly and imperceptibly, working out results the highest and the 
noblest to which uninspired humanity can attain — are mold 
ing into symmetry, and efficiency, and great aptitudes not 
only the most excellent and the most dignified portion of oui 
complex nature, but the one element of that nature of which 
excellence and dignity can be predicated ; that they are open- 
ing for the present, and endowing for the future, sources of 
pure, inexhaustible satisfactions and employments, congenial 
with the soul's vital, enduring appetencies, and most refresh- 
ing in all its possible modes and times ; that they are train- 



42 PROPER INCENTIVES TO 

ing the mind for the conflicts of opinion and of human affairs 
— for the achievements of science and art — for the pleasures 
and the performances of literary leisure or literary toil ; and 
more than all, and comprehending all, to he the receptacle 
and the dwelling-place of the sublime truths which Nature 
yields up to patient investigation, and of the holy revelations 
which Nature's God has given forth through his word and 
by his glorious Son — all, all to be the mind's own treasure 
and swelling joy — to he the subjects of its future medita- 
tions, the elements of profounder analyses and higher com- 
binations, and, if Religion be conciliated as the handmaid and 
sanctifier of literary toil, to become themes for praise and 
thanksgiving — incitements to adoring wonder and spiritual 
worship. 

I do not regard myself as using a theological, but a purely 
and strictly philosophical argument when I add, as a mighty 
auxiliary to the considerations just now suggested, that the 
student, in lahoring for the invigoration, and enlargement, 
and illumination of the mind, and for its endowment with 
inexhaustible resources for enjoyment and activity, is not 
providing merely for temporal exigencies and satisfactions. 
He is engaged in the immeasurably more important work 
of furnishing his immortal nature with the vigor and the 
grasp, the appliances and the capabilities, the insight and 
the momentum with which it shall he ushered into its ulti- 
mate state, and fulfill the functions and the endless cycles 
of eternal being. 

It is a conclusion suggested hy reason and hy all sound 
analogies, that the mental character, no less than the moral, 
receives its fixed cast and ineffaceahle impression here — that 
the present life is essentially a prohation for the intellectual 
nature as truly as it is for the moral. Admitting the mind's 
immortality of existence and activity, and taking into account 
the familiar phenomena attendant on the different stages of 
its development, it seems to me not only probable, but little 



HIGH INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. 43 

less than demonstrably true, that its earthly career and train- 
ing holds to its endless life hereafter much the same relation 
which the forming period of childhood and youth sustains to 
subsequent years. As negligent early training finds no rem- 
edy in the endeavors of after years, when the mind's suscep- 
tibilities are blunted, and its yielding, plastic nature is im 
prisoned in the iron stabilities of immutable habit, so the 
mental infirmities and crudities which survive the opportu- 
nities of our earthly career can not calculate, so far as we have 
any ground either of hope or conjecture, upon remedial pro- 
visions and meliorations in the world to come. It ought not, 
perhaps, to be expected that the motive for diligent, pains- 
taking mental culture which these considerations suggest will 
exert its legitimate authority over the larger number of minds ; 
but whoever will commune thoughtfully and reverently with 
so high an argument, must, I am sure, become conscious of an 
incentive to intellectual activity more potent than this world's 
fading interests can inspire — an incentive that shall preside 
over all his benignant opportunities and precious hours — that 
shal). invest with dignity, and even with sanctity, the entire 
scholastic life, and impart to such advances after mental dis- 
cipline as even the humblest capacity is capable of achieving, 
an inappreciable value which shall a thousand times out- 
weigh the ills imposed by study or by poverty — that shall 
appease all the solicitudes which in so many forms and de- 
grees beset the student's career, and shall arouse an essential 
manliness to overawe the illusions, and allurements, and 
base appetites and passions which, under lower auspices, sc 
often corrupt and enslave. 

There would have been a philosophical propriety in giving 
to Curiosity the precedence of order in discussing the motives 
to scholastic toils, but I preferred such an arrangement as 
might incidentally and at the outset suggest the proper ob- 
jects and ends of education, as well as the incentives most 
adapted to urge the student on to mental achievements. 



44 PROPER INCENTIVES TO 

Curiosity fulfills in the business of education a function not 
unlike that of the appetite in its relation to bodily vigor and 
health. The natural craving for food has no conscious refer- 
ence to the health or strength of the physical man, but finds 
its utmost satisfaction in the aliment by which these are pro 
duced and sustained. Curiosity likewise, which may be re- 
garded as the mind's appetite for its proper nutriment, takea 
no thought for the mental growth and discipline to which it 
contributes so powerfully, but is wholly occupied with the 
novelties and with the quest that constitutes the real instru- 
ments and media concerned in intellectual improvement. 
This is eminently a natural and congenial motive to scholas- 
tic effort. An original, inborn element of the mind's consti 
tution, it operates even before the dawn of reason, and' grows 
in strength and activity with every new degree of intellect- 
ual development. Under any judicious system of mental 
culture, curiosity may be relied on as a stable influence little 
exposed to disturbing interference from without, and never 
liable to become inert or exhausted, except in the most be- 
sotted minds, in which essential original deficiencies have 
been aggravated by indolence and vice into positive organic 
malformations. I know not that a lesson of higher practical 
value can be inculcated upon the student than finds expres- 
sion in earnest admonitions to give the fullest heed to the 
suggestions of curiosity — that he cultivate it sedulously, and 
follow it joyfully — that, in restraining it from trifles, he never 
hastily proscribe as a trifle the most insignificant fact that 
may lead to the disclosure of a law — that he lovingly invoke 
and never harshly repress the inquisitive spirit that looks for 
gold and pearls in all that shines, and finds mysteries or prod- 
igies where stupid dullness only stares upon inanity. In fine, 
that he cherish and obey this wakeful, most suggestive Pro- 
tean divinity, in full confidence that he will thus most effect- 
ively multiply the sources and the satisfactions of mental im 
provement — that thus he may, at the same time, both aug- 



HIGH INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. *45 

ment the momentum and lessen the friction of intellectual 
exertion. We possess sufficient data for explaining very 
satisfactorily the difference between a wise man and a fool 
when we know that the one not only has the organ of curi- 
osity well developed, but has labored diligently for its devel- 
opment as one of the secrets of intellectual power — that he 
has walked abroad from his youth with open eyes and ears., 
inquisitive and vivacious, ever eager to investigate and to 
comprehend what in the world of mind and of matter is of- 
fered to his notice ; while the other, with all the apathy of 
a graven image, has moved on with his generation, blind and 
deaf in the midst of phenomena rife with the treasures of all 
terrestrial and heavenly wisdom. 

I think we are wont to denominate as curiosity the rest- 
less appetency for novelty and discovery which are always 
observable in the young, when possessed of good natural en- 
dowments, rather than the no less intense eagerness that 
stimulates the maturer man in similar pursuits. I think, too, 
there may be just ground for this distinction, and that the 
now undisciplined impulse, without losing any of its vigor, 
does, at least in many instances, subside into the sobrieties 
of a permanent, cultivated, circumspect, controlling love of 
truth. This, I apprehend, is the natural progress of the mind, 
and that the lower motive, or perhaps we should say, the 
same motive in its less perfect form, has a spontaneous tend- 
ency towards a higher type when what was special and 
untutored in its more juvenile efforts is merged in their bet- 
ter final development. 

Of a human mind which has attained to the state where 
an earnest love of truth has become the habitual ruling im- 
pulse, we can not affirm less than that education has fully, 
achieved its highest object in such a consummation. It has 
fairly introduced the intellect upon an endless career, under 
an attracting force at once powerful, congenial, and inex 
haustible. In searching for the truths- which it loves, and 



46* PROPER INCENTIVES TO 

in communing with them, the mind will henceforward enjoy 
all possible alleviations of toil, and command the highest 
sources of satisfaction and growth. It is a mighty and a 
pregnant discovery never fully and consciously recognized 
till the mind has reached that point in its progress when 
knowledge becomes wisdom, that the laws and the facts 
which, whatever be the character and special direction of 
our studies and investigations, it is their one rational object 
to ascertain and disclose, are realities — are truths to which 
the Supreme Intelligence gives expression in all the phases 
of things and of history. 

Regarded in this light, which some reflection will satisfy 
any thoughtful mi'id is the only just light, the pursuits of 
science and literature assume a deeply interesting and even 
a holy character, which adds immeasurably to their efficacy 
both as attractive motives, and as the media and instruments 
of intellectual enlargement and discipline. Such a recogni- 
tion of the real dignity and the sublime relations which be- 
long to the proper objects of the student's occupations, can 
not fail of inspiring him with a high reverence for all truth, 
and of guarding him against the disturbing interference of 
those passions and prejudices which, upon many, perhaps 
upon most minds, exert an unsuspected but most pernicious 
influence, fatally obstructive of the highest development and 
power. Under the favorable conditions we have supposed 
— above all other conditions — under the benignant auspices 
of this holy reverence for truth, intellectual occupations 
speedily impress upon the mind a peculiar character of se- 
renity and sobriety, quicken and refine the powers of percep- 
tion and discrimination into the delicacy and spontaneity of 
an original taste, and so augment the grasp, the vigor, the 
astuteness, and the vivacity of the reasoning faculties, that 
their evolutions more resemble the automatic decisions of in- 
stinct and intuition than ordinary processes of ratiocination 

Such, as it seems to me, must have been the mental hab- 



HIGH INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. 47 

itudes of Newton, formed chiefly in scientific investigations, 
but found equally effective and unerring when employed in 
the solution of the profoundest questions of morals, theology, 
and public affairs. Such, as I always imagine, was the in- 
tellectvral character as well as training of Washington, whose 
serene wisdom gave forth those simple authoritative oracles 
which were able to calm the passions and shape the destiny 
of an unformed nation, rendered turbulent and chaotic by 
the endless discussions and clashing theories of its profound 
statesmen and brilliant orators. ' * " 

I have here indicated a standard of mental capacity and 
culture, which is not, indeed, to be held up as fully attaina- 
ble by all, but which may, I think, be judiciously recom- 
mended to young men aspiring to excellence as a noble ideal, 
to be contemplated hopefully and reverently, approachable 
proximately, and by different grades of intellect, in such de- 
grees as shall very accurately measure tbeir success and prog- 
ress in mental education. This conception of a well-or- 
dered, well-furnished intellect, which very correctly describes 
my highest idea of a true philosopher and sage, must be the* 
result of a course of training and self-culture conducted on 
an enlightened theory and under favorable auspices. As the 
most hopeful means for securing this extraordinary degree 
of mental symmetry, completeness, and efficiency, I may refer 
to suggestions already made, and to some others which I may 
have occasion to propose. 

One practical admonition, however, I here subjoin. Of 
that class of students best endowed with the capacities and 
aspirations which might raise them into this exalted sphere 
of intellectual superiority, a few of the most highly gifted 
exclude themselves from the waiting honor by prematurely 
letting in upon the mind such exciting, absorbing influences 
as necessarily disturb the balance and harmonious play of its 
ductile capabilities, and just at this most critical period inter- 
fere rudely and irretrievably with its symmetrical develop- 



48 PROPER INCENTIVES TO 

merit. An ardent, enthusiastic temperament, very favorable 
and helpful to the highest excellence while its quickening 
influence is diffused, and gives character and momentum to 
the entire of the intellectual movements, when long concen- 
trated upon a single subject, and shut up to the task of vi- 
talizing and emblazoning some favorite single idea, often de- 
velops an excrescence and a deformity, and gives a bad prom- 
inence to one bloated feature of the mind by exhausting upon 
it all the healthful energies of the system. 

It sometimes happens that a young man incurs evils as 
grievous by wasting the generous enthusiasm of his nature on 
some transient, if not trivial excitement, which he adopts, and 
represents in the midst of his own little public or of the scho- 
lastic community with the most disinterested zeal, and with 
abounding sympathies that fully occupy his spare hours, and 
give premature exercise to his budding logic and eloquence. 
There is a certain *clat in being the precocious patron of 
questions that agitate senates and stir the heart of a nation. 
No wonder if some years of such stimulating occupation leave 
their ineffaceable vestiges upon a plastic nature still in the 
gristle. The result is usually a one-sided development that 
no subsequent training ever corrects. Accustomed too early 
to act under the strong stimulants which party spirit and 
party strife know how to supply, the mind gradually loses 
its power to act with energy in any other direction, or except 
under such excitements as necessitate exaggerated action. 
All this exorbitance becomes habitual — grows to be a law and 
a despotism to which the mind thenceforward is in bondage. 

The serene majesty of truth — the calm processes of rea- 
soning exalted into unconscious intuitions — the dominant, 
clear intelligence which deserves the name of wisdom, are 
never reached by a mind once thoroughly infected with such 
a mania. Nothing is congenial to it, or has much power to 
move it, which can not gratify the predominant appetite for 
emotion or polemics. The blunder of the boy becomes the 



HIGH INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. 49 

inheritance of the man, whose perverted intellect at length 
scarcely recognizes the distinctions of true and false, and 
comes to feel that one has about as fair claims as the other 
to a hearing, provided only it has an ingenious showing of 
argument or sentiment for its commendation. Our sugges- 
tions seek to inculcate the practical lesson, that at the form- 
ing period when the sensation and emotional nature is always 
more fully developed than the intellectual, and is very liable 
to be provoked into exorbitant action, the student should 
avoid occasions that are likely to exaggerate this tendency 
into an habitual, predominant mental force. He will thus 
guard himself against a partial, one-sided culture, and pre- 
serve this precious motive power unwasted and uncorrupted 
to augment the intellectual efficiency of riper years. 

C 



50 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF 



LECTURE IV. 

DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF THE MENTAL FAC 
ULTIES. 

Retrospect of the preceding Suggestions. — Claims of Patriotism and of 
Religion. — What is Education ? — Analogies from physical Training, 
Labor, Rest, Recreation, Diet, Dress, general Symmetry. — Distortion 
and Malformation. — Some Faculties of the Mind invigorated at they 
expense of others. — Illustrations. — Course of Study should be com- 
prehensive, well selected, and well proportioned.*~It is the mental 
Effort, and not the Knowledge, attained that disciplines the Mind. — 
Illustrations. — Shallow but common Argument against the pursuit of 
literary Studies. — Grievous Mistakes into which Students fall from 
not appreciating the true Idea of Education. — The Mischief enhanced 
by the example of showy Accomplishments. — The Course of Studiea 
pursued in American Colleges. — The Result of protracted Experi- 
ments in Education, and the best System ever devised for the Devel ■ 
opment and Discipline of the Mind. 

In my last Lecture I called your attention to several con 
siderations explaining and enforcing the motives best adapt- 
ed by their nature, as well as by their strength, to sustain 
the student in his scholastic career. The importance and 
essential dignity of mental culture, as the elevation of man's 
higher nature, and as an indispensable preparation not only 
for the higher duties of life, but probably, also, for the pro- 
foundly interesting exigencies of the endless future, were 
urged with an earnestness which I am sure did not trans- 
cend the significance and the solemnity of such an argu- 
ment. Inferior in dignity but not in efficiency, curiosity was 
there commanded as worthy of the student's special regard, 
not more because it constitutes one of the most powerful in- 
citements to mental activity, but because it is very liable to 
be diverted from its legitimate objects and exhausted on friv- 
olous pursuits. A sincere, reverent love of truth seems en- 



THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 51 

titled to pre-eminence among philosophical incentives to in- 
tellectual efforts, and I intimated the opinion that, in the best 
constituted minds, there is always a tendency to rise up into 
this higher sphere, where intellectual activities and acquisi- 
tions minister directly to the satisfaction of the mind's pro- 
foundest wants. Because the intense, perennial excitement 
which youth and inexperience always find in the fierce agi- 
tation of partisan, and especially of political questions, is usu- 
ally injurious to mental improvement, and often proves fatal 
to the symmetrical development of the mind's powers, I urged 
the great practical importance of postponing any very active 
participation in these disturbing pursuits till the mind shall 
be prepared for such collisions by greater maturity and more 
perfect discipline. 

I have not dwelt upon some considerations, which operate 
with greater force, perhaps, than any other upon a considera- 
ble number of young men engaged in scholastic pursuits. It 
does not suit the more special design which guides our pres- 
ent inquiries to discuss a class of motives which, though con- 
fessedly the most venerable and authoritative, derive their 
efficiency rather from their moral than from their philosophi- 
cal character. On another occasion I should unquestionably 
insist upon the paramount claims of patriotism and religion 
as most worthy to incite the young to put forth strenuous 
and incessant efforts for the acquisition of such knowledge 
and discipline as may qualify them to do good service, in the 
cause of their country and of the human race. After all that 
has been done to elevate scholarship and to multiply well- 
educated men among us, our rapid advancement in popula- 
tion and wealth, and in the arts that minister to physical 
enjoyment, has far outrun the progress of liberal education, 
and this alarming disproportion of intellectual to material re- 
sources is constantly increasing. It requires no prophetic gift 
to foretell the inevitable result, in a degraded morality and 
civilization, of this unequal struggle of light with darkness, 



52 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF 

if vigorous efforts shall not be made to restore the conserva- 
tive element to its just ascendency ; and I must think that 
every young man who resists the temptations of business and 
speculation, and resolves at all hazards and sacrifices to give 
to his country a well-cultivated intellect and a pure charac- 
ter, does good service to the state, and fulfills the high func- 
tion of a patriot. If religion, the only principle of action 
more exalted than patriotism, shall be the motive for pre- 
ferring to wealth or ease the more toilsome and self-denying 
intellectual career, a yet higher virtue is involved in the 
choice which, in consecrating the student to the best inter- 
ests of man, fully pledges him to the best interests of his 
country. 

We are now prepared to ask and to answer the very prac- 
tical question, "What is education?" "What are the objects 
which should be sought by the intelligent student, who as- 
pires, on the highest moral or philosophical grounds, to make 
the most of his scholastic course ? 

Authors and teachers have supplied us with many satis 
factory definitions of education, especially the later writers 
upon the subject, who have been actuated by a very lauda- 
ble desire to give to the floating maxims and usages of the 
teacher's vocation the form and dignity of a science. All 
the later definitions of education embrace physical as well as 
mental training, thus recognizing an ancient and nearly ob- 
solete idea, and restoring it to its just importance and position 
as a fundamental principle. Bearing in mind, as a truth now 
generally admitted, that education is the preparation of the 
intellectual and physical nature of a human being for the 
best performance of all his duties and functions, we may find 
in the culture bestowed upon the grosser element of our com- 
pound humanity, in every judicious system of training, some 
instructive analogies to guide us in the higher and more dif- 
ficult work of educating the mind. 

What aims and processes are involved in educating the 



THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 



physical constitution of man for the most efficient and satis- 
factory fulfillment of its proper offices ? Without attempt- 
ing any logical analysis of this complicated subject, we may 
affirm, as the unquestionable judgment of all whose opinion 
is of any value, that every judicious system of physical train- 
ing must aim at the most perfect development of all the or- 
gans and sources of power that belong to man's bodily struc- 
ture. Nothing must be omitted which will conduce to the 
symmetry, the strength, the beauty, or the activity of the 
material frame. Its powers of endurance and of adaptation 
to all the changes and varieties of labor or of rest, to which 
it is likely to be exposed, will be sedulously cultivated. The 
utmost attention will be paid to general health, and such 
habits of labor, of recreation, of rest, of diet, of dress, will be 
cultivated as are believed to constitute the best guarantees 
of uniform and prolonged vigor, and the best safeguards 
against infirmity and disease in all their forms, degrees, and 
procuring causes. So far as watchfulness, and persevering, 
painstaking efforts are able to secure such objects, will every 
limb be trained to the most graceful form and movement, 
and each muscle and organ concerned in either voluntary or 
involuntary action be endowed with all possible solidity and 
strength of fibre. In whatever degree of perfection these ad- 
vantages shall be combined in an erect, well-proportioned, 
manly form, free from all ungainliness of attitude and awk- 
wardness of motion, in the same degree should we be pre- 
pared to announce that the material specimen of humanity 
which should be the result of this manifold experiment unit- 
ed in himself the best gifts of nature and of education. 

It would be an egregious blunder m this molding process 
if, hi the narroAvness of their theory, or through deficiency in 
care or skill, the parents or teachers should bestow all their 
formative labor upon a single limb or set of muscles, unmind- 
ful of the superior claims of general symmetry. It would mar 
the entire undertaking should the physical training be con- 



54 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF 

ducted on the baseless supposition that delicacy of complex- 
ion, or white, slender fingers, or graceful dancing are the 
highest attributes of manhood. Nothing could be more fa- 
tal to the general object of rearing up an effective, faultless 
specimen of material humanity than an attempt to give spe- 
cial prominence to some particular object or accomplishment 
held in most esteem by the operator. The utmost care must 
be used to check all such exaggerated developments which 
unavoidably disturb the general harmony and effect. It is 
the greatest misfortune of a child to be prematurely con 
signed to the occupation which is to employ his riper years 
— a fate which insures the inordinate development of organs 
and aptitudes concerned in the special pursuit at the expense 
of the system. The formation of habits belonging to any 
particular trade or vocation should, as far as possible, be 
postponed till the human frame has acquired a firmness of 
texture, which is able to resist encroachments from without, 
and to guard itself against distortions and malformations, 
which a too early contact with mechanical labor is apt to 
inflict. The well-developed, mature man has attained to a 
physical condition which has nothing to fear from such causes 
and agencies — which successfully resists the material aggres- 
sion, and reacts against the external violence that would mar 
its symmetry and bow down its stateliness. 

I think it would strike every one as the height of absurd- 
ity, though it be precisely such an absurdity as we observe 
every day committed in the education of the intellect, should 
we see a parent endeavoring, by such arts as he might, to 
induce a large development of the right arm because his son 
is destined to wield a sledge-hammer, or sedulously cultivat- 
ing a curvature of the spine because he is likely to follow the 
plow. 

The analogies suggested by these remarks on physical ed- 
ucation, and their obvious applications to the mental train- 
ing with which we are at present chiefly concerned, will 



THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 65 

readily occur to every attentive student. I may take it for 
granted that the substantial correctness of these educational 
maxims is self-evident, and will not be called in question by 
any intelligent person. The general principles concerned 
in intellectual training are in themselves equally plain, and 
would, with the same readiness, be acknowledged, but for the 
obscurity in which they have been involved by over-much 
discussion and controversy. The ignorance and inexperi- 
ence of parents, the restless impatience of some students, and 
the stubborn indolence of others, raise a multitude of ques- 
tions in regard to the best methods of mental culture, when 
there is, in reality, no reasonable ground for doubt. Because 
no such temptations to adopt an erroneous theory of physical 
education exist, this part of the subject is quite free from dif- 
ficulty, so far as principles are concerned. Poverty, or the 
want of intelligence or of caution, do, indeed, lead to a di- 
versity of practice. Children of tender years are consigned 
to labor in factories or mines, or to the drudgery of agricul- 
tural employments ; but the results of these injudicious ex- 
periments are usually so obvious and mischievous as to re- 
buke the folly, and expose the unnatural theory, if theory it 
may be called, on which they are conducted. The mind is 
not less susceptible than the body to injuries inflicted by sim- 
ilar mismanagement, but because it wears its scars and its 
distortions out of sight, both the theoretical blunder and the 
irretrievable mischief escape the notice of careless observers. 
I return to the main subject, not without a measure of 
confidence that this preliminary discussion will be found to 
have shed some light upon it. Apt illustrations carry with 
them the force of arguments, and I am sure that, after what 
has been said of physical education, you are prepared to ad- 
mit that the education of the mind requires, and consists in, 
the symmetrical development and adequate discipline of 
the mind' 's faculties. In the two words Development and 
Discipline are contained all the ideas — are expressed all tho 



66 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF 

conditions and efficiencies set forth in that very complex and 
very practical term, education. Both development and dis- 
cipline seek to obtain their proper results by the same means 
— by the exercise of the mental faculties. Yet do they sug- 
gest to the mind ideas somewhat different, and their ends are 
not identical. A course of training may be very strenuous and 
effective in its disciplinary agency — may invigorate special 
faculties of the mind, and inure them to toil, and, at the 
same time, be directed so unskillfully, and operate so par- 
tially, as not only to leave other faculties without improve- 
ment, but as actually to dwarf and stifle' them by the over- 
laying, exhausting luxuriance of the pampered mental or- 
gan. A retentive memory, for instance, made prodigious by 
exorbitant, ill-assorted reading, is hardly ever found in union 
with good powers of reasoning or good taste. The imagin- 
ation, overgrown and stimulated by undue and nearly ex- 
clusive attention to fictitious literature, usually becomes the 
tyrant of the mind, while an exclusive and prolonged devo- 
tion to abstruse studies very commonly impairs the powers 
of fancy. The eager partisan, who early consecrates him- 
self to the care of one idea, infallibly acquires a habit of 
mind more favorable to subtle disputation than to the enter- 
tainment of comprehensive, manly views. These familiar, 
palpable examples illustrate the importance of a judicious 
selection of the exercises which are to become the instru- 
ments and media of mental development and discipline. 
They suggest to the student and the parent that the choice 
of a course of academical study is a full task for great dis- 
cretion and experience, and deep insight into the nature and 
wants of the human mind. Whoever confides the direction 
of a work, at once so difficult and so momentous, to accident, 
to his own unformed, fitful tastes and tendencies, or to un- 
skillful advisers, is not only liable to great injury, but will 
certainly render impossible to himself the highest and best 
intellectual cultivation. It will be perceived, at a glance, 



THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 57 

that any good method of mental development must be com- 
prehensive, not only in the impartial regards bestowed on 
the several faculties, but also in the various, well-selected, 
well-proportioned exercises which are to be the media and 
instruments for the performance of functions so delicate and 
manifold. ' 

With these special remarks upon development, which are 
designed to be rather suggestive than to exhaust the subject, 
I pass on to some considerations connected with mental dis- 
cipline. 

It is the study, the mental efforts involved in scholastic 
exercises, and not at all or only in a very inferior degree, the 
knowledge gained and retained, that disciplines the mind. 
The porter grows strong from the frequent use of the mus- 
cles employed in bearing burdens, though he may not retain 
any of the precious merchandise that gives him such invig- 
orating exercise. Each of you is probably acquainted with 
individuals whose minds are stored, or rather crammed, with 
knowledge of one sort or other — politics, history, theology, 
gossip, dates, facts, anecdotes, the accumulation of much 
reading and hearing, hoarded up by an unrelenting mem- 
ory — all at the disposition of an intellect so wanting in vigor" 
and judgment as to render this crude mass of acquisitions 
utterly worthless for all the purposes of reason or of action. 
We may obtain still further illustration by contrasting this 
class of minds with another equally common, nearly desti- 
tute of general information, but so well disciplineo 1 by a thor- 
ough training in the sciences and the classics as to be fully 
prepared to learn and to digest all knowledge. 

Could you suppose a well-educated man to be suddenly 
deprived of all his acquisitions, but under such conditions as 
should leave his mental faculties unimpaired, you would, no 
doubt, have before you a case very deserving of sympathy 
for the grievous losses sustained. Much time, it may be, 
will be required to replenish the exhausted store-house, and 

C 2 



58 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OP 

the mind will feel deeply the pressing want of resources 
which constitute its natural aliment, and the precious ma- 
terial which reason and imagination are wont to mold into 
so many forms of truth and beauty. It will retain, however, 
under the considerations supposed, all the essential advant- 
ages which education confers. The knowledge* which has 
been lost was hi part the instrument employed in disciplin- 
ing the mind, and partly the fruit and acquisition gained by 
such discipline. Now it is no longer wanted as an instru- 
ment, and the well-trained faculties are prepared to enter 
upon a fresh career of acquisition, under circumstances the 
most favorable to rapid and eminent success. 

Such a case as our argument supposes, seldom, perhaps 
never, occurs in the history of the human mind, since the 
oblivion of previous acquisitions can usually result only from 
the disease or entire decay of memory. Something very 
analogous, however, sometimes happens to educated men, 
who, after some years spent in professional or public life, are 
found to have nearly or wholly forgotten the processes and 
the lore that gave occupation to their scholastic years. A 
shallow and unphilosophical objection to classical and scien- 
tific education is often raised from this not unfrequent oblivion 
of early attainments. It is certainly a reproach to a man of 
liberal education to neglect and forget his academic studies, 
and no better method can be devised for maintaining a high, 
healthful intellectual condition than a familiarity with these 
best sources of mental discipline, continued amid all the 
scenes of active life. As an argument against the usual 
course of collegiate training, however, no objection was ever 
more preposterous. The fact that so many educated men, 
in spite of the indolence or the bad taste that neglects the 
best sources of their early culture, maintain distinguished po- 
sitions in the world, and other things being equal, always 
outstrip- their less classical competitors, demonstrates the 
superior excellence of their training, and clearly intimates 



THE MENTAL FACULTIES. oJ 

that the real efficiency of education resides in the mental dis- 
cipline, and not in the science which was but an incident or 
an instrument of culture and growth. 

I am endeavoring to remove all obscurity from what ap- 
pears to me a very manifest, if not a self-evident truth, that 
education consists wholly in unfolding and training the men- 
tal faculties. This is a fundamental proposition, the adop- 
tion or practical rejection of which will not fail of exerting 
a powerful influence upon the student's advancement and 
success. It is one of those fruitful theoretical principles that 
lie in immediate contact with the activities of the daily life, 
imparting to them their inspiration, their character, and their 
efficiency. It is most needful for the humblest aspirant after 
the benefits of education to recognize distinctly as the one 
object of all his scholastic exercises and efforts that culture 
of the intellect which invites into harmonious manifestation 
and movement, and inures to labor, and order, and good hab- 
itudes, all its manifold capabilities. Till this true and phil- 
osophical theory has effected a lodgment, and won an intelli- 
gent recognition in the student's mind, his own efforts are 
likely to be unstable and ill directed, nor is he prepared to 
profit greatly by the instruction which proffers its aids only 
in co-operation with his own enlightened endeavors. Every 
sound scholastic maxim proceeds upon this idea of education, 
and in the few practical suggestions which I have still to 
propose, I can not hope to produce any useful impression ex- 
cept upon minds already preoccupied with the settled con- 
viction that the objects of academic pursuits are attained only 
in so far as the mental powers have gained such enlargement, 
vigor, and skill as may best fit a human being for the whole 
career that is before him. 

I am not aware that the views of education here advanced 
ari often called in question, but all my experience and ob- 
servation have induced me to conclude that upon a veiy con- 
siderable proportion of students these views fail to exert their 



bO DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF 

full practical influence. My argument labors, for instance, 
to demonstrate that the unfolding and training of the mind's 
faculties is the important result to be aimed at by the scho- 
lastic procedure, that the result is to be sought as the fitting 
end of education, and that any deviation in quest of more 
special objects must involve a loss of general mental power, 
and so interfere even with the particular advantage which 
is sought at the sacrifice of interests so much more import- 
ant. In open defiance of this simple, wholesome maxim it 
is that a number of students in every college class are pros- 
ecuting their studies with a tacit, perhaps an unconscious, but 
always a misleading reference to professional or other objects 
to which their lives are to be devoted. One neglects Greek 
because he is not to be a teacher or a theologian. Another 
reads Plutarch and the Federalist when he should study 
Euclid, because jurists and statesmen are likely to need facts 
and precedents, and Ciceronian eloquence rather than log- 
arithms. The embryo author, who devours magazines, and 
critical reviews, and newspapers, and treasures up memora- 
bilia from new novels and old poems and plays, often seems 
to congratulate himself under the occasional inconveniences 
which neglect of more significant occupation must sometimes 
incur, that, at least, he is guarding his imagination and genius 
against imminent dangers. I have known not a few earnest 
candidates for the Christian ministry fall into a similar error, 
and carry with them through college a very decided theory, 
which sometimes went the length of pleading conscience for 
the neglect of certain branches of study eminently adapted 
to discipline the mind, in favor of others which were sup- 
posed to affiliate more nearly with their chosen profession, 
though incomparably less efficient for the proper business 
and fit ends of education. 

It would not be easy to over-estimate the grievous mischief 
that is done by the practical adoption of these educational 
heresies. A number of students, I fear, labor habitually un- 



THE MENTAL FACULTIES. t)J 



der the paralyzing influence of an error so fundamental that 
it must disturb the harmonious development of the faculties 
with which education is concerned, and often, perhaps usu- 
ally, result either in the premature abandonment of the scho- 
lastic career, which speedily becomes impracticable under 
this intermeddling eclecticism, or only postpone the catas- 
trophe till the stern pursuits of active professional life put 
forth their demand for measures of intellectual efficiency de- 
nied to such partial, halting scholarship. The mischiefs of 
this preposterous theory are not a little enhanced, as well as 
diffused, when it happens to enjoy the countenance and the 
advocacy of one or two students whose quick parts and con- 
siderable general information enable them to become fluent 
debaters and popular writers. With the prestige of such 
showy accomplishments, they sometimes become oracles in 
the midst of indolent admirers, who fully appreciate the ge- 
nius who can eloquently as well as practically demonstrate 
that the supposed connection between intellectual excellence 
and thorough mental discipline is an exploded fiction of 
darker ages, which, though well enough for hoodwinked 
monks, is quite too bald a theory to be palmed upon spirited 
young men who are destined to act a great part in the great- 
est of modern republics. 

Happy shall I be if those who hear me shall, on due re- 
flection, pronounce that the picture I have drawn is drawn 
wholly from fancy, and that it represents nothing of which the 
reality has existed within the memory of the existing scho- 
lastic generation. Such a verdict would announce a fact 
and a reform over which the friends of liberal education 
might well rejoice, and an example to provoke the wonder 
and the emulation of all the colleges in the land. It will, 
indeed, be a memorable epoch in the history of our institu- 
tions of learning, when the whole company of ingenuous 
young men shall feel and obey the true inspiration of their 
position and their courted destiny — when no group of idlers 



62 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OP 

or half-idlers shall hover about their threshold, at the com- 
ing of the new recruit, to seduce his feeble purposes and slen- 
der manliness with the ready proffer of fellowship and sym- 
pathy, and when not one can be found willing to lend to the 
support of so poor a theory the influence derived either 
from gifts or graces — from genius or from manners — from 
natural amiability or from social position — from writing well 
or speaking eloquently. 

I shall conclude this topic and this Lecture by a brief re- 
mark on the course of studies pursued in our American col- 
leges. It has become almost fashionable to say of our cur- 
riculum that it is substantially that of the Dark Ages. Now 
it is unquestionably true that monks and schoolmen learned 
Latin, which is the one solitary element of truth in this reck- 
less statement. Latin was then the only language known to 
science, and it constituted, together with the false logic and 
philosophy of that day, the sum of scholastic requirements. 
The branches of study now prescribed have, in their kind, 
order, and proportions, a primary, and, I must think, a wise 
reference to mental discipline. The great prominence given 
to linguistic and scientific studies is a well-merited conces- 
sion, approved by all experience, to their pre-eminent adap- 
tation to the ends of development and training. They occu- 
py an early as well as a considerable part of the course, be- 
cause they best furnish the indispensable experience and 
habitudes which the mind wants in order to secure the best 
fruits of the discursive, and speculative studies that are to 
employ its subsequent labors. This course of study is the 
result of a comprehensive, protracted experiment in educa- 
tion. It may be regarded as the accumulated testimony of 
the teachers and scholars of many enlightened nations and 
centuries. We do well to observe that the malcontents un- 
der this system do not usually deny to it the highest merit 
to which it lays claim — the merit of being incomparably the 
best system which human genius and experience have ever 



THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 03 

devised for the development and discipline of the mental fac- 
ulties. This, I repeat again and again, is the true philo- 
sophical idea of liberal education. Between those who em- 
brace this theory of education and those who so clamorously 
demand of our colleges, not intellectual culture, but only so 
many of the crude elements of knowledge as are immediate- 
ly applicable to the art or craft to which they hasten, there 
is really no just ground for controversy. Their ideas of edu- 
cation are, indeed, very diverse ; but not more so than then- 
objects, which are unlike, by the entire difference that exists 
between a scholar and an artisan — between a philosopher 
and a superintendent of farm or factory operations. 



64 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OP 



LECTURE V. 

THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF MENTAL DIS- 
CIPLINE. 

Early intellectual Habits. — Power to modify and change them. — The 
Memory. — Concentration of Thought. — Improvement of the reason- 
ing Faculties. — The Study of general Principles. — Illustrations from 
Chemistry and Geology. — The Mathematics. — The Languages of An- 
tiquity. — New Sources of Satisfaction thence arising to the diligent 
Student. — The attainment of a pure and elegant Style. — A Sugges- 
tion from personal Experience. — Efficacy of Method and orderly Ar- 
rangement. — Objections answered. — Laws of Association. — Super- 
ficial Methods of Study. — Thoroughness of Investigation the only 
Method of making future Studies easy and pleasant. — Facility of Ac- 
quisition not always a test of intellectual Capacity. — What are called 
hard Studies rather to be preferred. — From them the Mind derives 
Strength. — Discipline rather than brilliant Talents produces great 
Men. 

I shall not detain you with a recapitulation of the topics 
and arguments of the last Lecture. Its pervading idea was 
substantially the same with that which I labored to establish 
and enforce in all of our previous discussions. The true the- 
ory of education, the motives that should incite, the objects 
that should guide the student, his liabilities, his blunders, his 
incipient habits, his temptations, his faults, in so far as these 
topics have come under our notice, have all been considered 
in the single aspect of their relation to the development and 
discipline which constitute education. The exhibition of this 
fundamental principle, in so many points of view, is fully 
justified by its philosophical importance in the business of 
education, as well as by the extreme difficulty usually expe- 
rienced in procuring its practical adoption by the student. 

Early as the scholastic career is usually commenced, the 
student brings with him to college intellectual habits, at 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 66 

least partially formed, if not fixed, and among the most in- 
veterate of these is the habit of performing the work of men- 
tal culture as a matter of routine rather than in a spirit of 
thoughtful deference to the intellectual laws concerned in 
the process. An attempt, like the one in which I am now 
engaged, to aid in this work by inculcating the philosophical 
ideas according to which it may be most successfully con- 
ducted, presupposes in the pupil the ability to sit in judg- 
ment upon these first principles, and to change or modify the 
habits which may have sprung up through neglect or acci- 
dent, or with the assent of a less enlightened theory. The 
full and frank recognition of this power of self-control — the 
manly assertion of this prerogative to mold and direct the 
mind's capabilities and meliorate its habitudes, must, as it 
seems to me, precede the practical adoption of any new, pro- 
founder views of the scholastic life, and must also precede any 
extraordinary improvements in the students career, whether 
as the result of his own enlightened convictions or as the fruit 
of a wiser teaching. As a matter of fact and experience, it 
is unquestionably true that young persons do actually pos- 
sess, though perhaps in different degrees, this plastic domin- 
ion over their own mental faculties. The actual course and 
practice of each individual is silently impressing upon his in- 
tellect a special individual character ; and as his competence 
to change, modify, or reverse his daily procedure is unques- 
tionable, so also is his ability to modify the depending result. 
The indolence, the apathy, the irregularity, the reckless in- 
attention under which the intellect runs to waste, and sinks 
into imbecility, may, if the victim of such follies only wills 
it, be substituted by the purpose, the self-command, and the 
earnest activity which insure vigor, perspicacity, and enlarge- 
ment. Students more distinguished for industry, persever- 
ance, and energy of character are proportionably more likely 
than the class just referred to to profit by the inculcation of 
a juster scholastic theory. Without adding to the amount 



66. THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF 

of intellectual exertion, it may become greatly more produc- 
tive under a more intelligent, precise direction. The powers 
of memory, for instance, may be stimulated to an extent that 
will even disturb the harmonious development of the other 
mental faculties, or it may grow oblivious and untrustworthy, 
very much in accordance with the kind of mismanagement 
to which it may be subjected even by a diligent student. 
Memoriter recitations, long continued, are likely not only to 
divorce the memory from the higher faculties of the mind, 
but to give to it an exaggerated development inconsistent 
with their natural and proper movements. The opposite 
fault of reading or studying without positive systematic ef- 
fort to retain and recall the facts and thoughts which consti- 
tute the media of the mind's activities, entails incoherence 
and confusion upon the slender recollections that spontane- 
ously cling to the mind, and at the same time damage the 
neglected faculty by inducing upon it an habitual tendency 
to obliviousness. This great evil may be alleviated or cor- 
rected by the student who will be at the pains of habituating 
himself to efforts of recollection, who rigidly exacts from the 
treacherous faculty some good account of what the reading or 
the lesson has supplied. A bad memory becomes tolerably 
effective, and an indifferent one good, under such a training, 
continued till the proper mental habit is established. 

The vividness and permanence of impressions made upon 
the mind, as well as the facility and value of its acquisitions 
depend very much upon its powers of concentrated, fixed at- 
tention. This is a faculty on which even the working stu- 
dent often bestows but little thought, though no power of the 
mind is more susceptible of culture and improvement. Man- 
ly aspirations and determined purpose, admitted to an habit- 
ual sway over the duties of the study and the recitation-room, 
will not be long in providing a remedy for wandering thoughts, 
and in enforcing an intellectual regimen favorable to the ut- 
most efficiency and precision ; while the daily lesson, conned 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE. " 67 



over in the midst of idlers and talkers or in somnolent recum- 
bency, in periods of time wrested from the more congenial 
claims of sport or gossip, and impatient of the intrusions of 
serious occupation, becomes a daily lesson in the act of per- 
verting and enfeebling the control which the will of right ex 
erts over the intellectual movement. 

The improvement of the reasoning faculties presents a 
problem more complex, and proportionably less subject to the 
application of special methods of procedure. Their highest 
efficiency would be found in the best special culture of all 
the intellectual powers. It is quite possible, however, for 
students of equal capacity and equal industry to be conduct- 
ed to very unequal results in regard to this highest devel- 
opment of the human intellect. There is such a thing as 
filling up a scholastic career with a busy, strenuous activity, 
which satisfies several of the conditions of education, and 
grossly violates none of them, without, however, promoting 
in an equal degree the unfolding and the discipline of the 
complex faculties concerned in the processes of reasoning. 
The method of study most favorable to such a result, while 
it uses all diligence in preparing for the requisitions of the 
recitation-room, aspires with no less earnestness to compre- 
hend the general principle under which all of the fragments 
of knowledge are combined and harmonized into a system 
and a science, that alone gives a fair expression of the val- 
ue and the import of the component parts. Chemistry and 
geology afford palpable illustrations of this remark. Their 
study involves a multitude of particulars by no means des- 
titute of individual interest, of which, however, tne true 
meaning and philosophical dignity do not appear unless they 
are contemplated in their relations to a comprehensive sci- 
ence, which has revealed to the world some of the most 
deeply-interesting portions of its own primeval history. It ,is 
obvious that, in such studies, the inquirer who toils ever in 
view of the philosophical theory in which each fact has its 



68 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF 

explanation, and at the same time ministers to a yet higher 
significance, subjects his reasoning faculties to an admirable 
process of training, from which nothing less can be expected 
than vigorous growth and expanded capabilities. The same 
pursuits, prosecuted with equal diligence, but without a 
proper conception of their import and bearings, are likely to 
prove proportionably less efficient as means of intellectual 
discipline. 

Mathematical studies afford another illustration of the 
subject in hand not less obvious and instructive. I am dis- 
posed to concede to this science a high place in the scholas- 
tic curriculum as a disciplinary, exercise. It begins in the 
midst of self-evident propositions, and its pathway is rendered 
luminous by successive revelations of immutable, universal 
truth. Every step in such investigations gives to the mind 
the most healthful, invigorating exercise, and familiarity with 
such labors is likely to leave an impression on the intellect 
deep and permanent, in proportion as the effort is intense and 
protracted. Beyond this immediate influence upon the mind, 
of which every diligent student will partake, other and high- 
er advantages will. I think, be secured by those who recog- 
nize in the details of each successive lesson the parts ef a 
comprehensive science — who put forth a constructive inge- 
nuity to assign to individual results their place in the great 
system of truth — who keep their minds imbued with a sense 
of the efficacy and the dignity of pursuits in which each ad- 
vancing step arms the soul with fresh power over the mate- 
rial universe — each problem becomes a link in the chain that 
binds the Pleiades and holds Saturn subject to the inquest 
and the measurements of science. It is precisely when the 
most exact and thorough comprehension of each step and 
result of the demonstration is accompanied and stimulated 
by this large, philosophizing spirit, that the intellect is likely 
to become endowed with the richest fruits of scholastic cul- 
ture. 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 69 

There is also a liberal and philosophical method of study- 
ing the languages of antiquity, which imbues the youthful 
mind with a discipline very distinguishable in kind and de- 
gree from the more usual results of even a diligent and ear- 
nest devotion to such pursuits. It is, I think, no uncommon 
thing for the student to lose sight of the information, of 
whatever sort, proffered to him by the classic page which 
has become the subject of his critical analysis, so that, at 
the end of a term, he knows less of the contents of the book 
which has furnished his daily recitation, than an hour's at- 
tention to so much English would bestow upon him. The 
loss of knowledge is not the most serious objection to such a 
procedure, but rather the neglect of a source of interest well 
adapted to aid the mind in its struggle after fixedness and 
concentration, and to prevent disgust and lassitude by giv- 
ing invigorating and refreshing exercises to the faculties. 
The manifold allusions to the customs, institutions, arts, and 
ideas which prevailed among the most enlightened nations 
of antiquity, with which the classical writers abound, sug- 
gest an inexhaustible store of topics for reflection and com- 
parison, which, without abating any thing from the lore 
or the discipline which the merely critical student derives 
from the well-conned lesson, offer to the reasoning, philo- 
sophical student the additional advantage of a most salutary, 
liberalizing exercise for the highest intecllctual faculties. 
It is sufficiently obvious that whoever will be at the trouble 
of prosecuting this class of studies, second to none in their 
efficiency as media of intellectual training, with a watchful 
eye to their intimate instructive relations with history, phi- 
losophy, ethnology, and other interesting departments of hu- 
man knowledge, will speedily find the toil and the friction 
of dry analysis, and an endless appeal to the umpirage of 
grammar and lexicography alleviated and illuminated by the 
unexpected discovery of so many new sources of satisfaction 
and intelligence, 



70 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OP 

I may not omit all notice of another very simple expedi- 
ent for enhancing the benefit, as well as the pleasure, of 
classical studies. It is within the competence of the stu- 
dent, in all the stages of his scholastic progress, to make the 
translation of the daily lesson the best of all exercises for the 
attainment of a pure, elegant style in writing and speaking 
his mother tongue. I have long been persuaded that the 
early adoption and vigorous employment, throughout the scho- 
lastic career, of this easy method of improvement in style, 
would go far to insure a highly respectable proficiency in En- 
glish composition, independently of the more formal teach- 
ings and exercises of that department. Such attempts at 
improvement in one of the best accomplishments which lib- 
eral education bestows, made in closest contact and commun- 
ion with the most perfect models, and under the presiding 
auspices of the noblest minds that Greece and Rome could 
boast, offer all possible facilities for the culture and refine- 
ment of the taste, and the best corrective of the ambitious 
finery and exaggerated rhetoric to which youths of quick 
parts and fruitful imaginations are wont to betray strong 
tendencies. To the students who desire to avail themselves 
of all the sources of improvement within their reach, it will 
be a recommendation of the method just proposed that it 
will give additional interest to the recitation, and enable 
them, without any new exaction upon their industry, to learn 
from the performances of an hour too often felt to be unprof- 
itable and even burdensome, a daily rhetorical lesson of great 
and permanent value. 

Before leaving the recitation I will make another sugges- 
tion well worthy of consideration, if I may trust the testi- 
mony of my own under-graduate experience. Much may be 
achieved toward making each lesson contribute its utmost 
to mental discipline, and to the formation of philosophical 
habits, by giving to the recitations of the class and the sug- 
gestions of the teacher such heedful attention as shall be 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 71 

equivalent to a careful review, in which not only may the 
errors and deficiencies of. private study be corrected, but all 
the parts and fragments of the entire scholastic exercise may 
be molded into a logical form, most fit to be received by the 
understanding, and preserved for future use in the memory. 
This habit, once thoroughly established and faithfully carried 
out in the daily history of four consecutive years, will, at the 
termination of such a career, be well able to account for what- 
ever difference may appear between an ordinary scholar and 
a good one. 

The efficacy of method in getting the lesson, regarded in 
its connection with the kind and degree of mental discipline 
to be derived from it, is a consideration of still greater im- 
portance than the manner of recitation. The preparation 
of the study should aim, as far as practicable, to furnish the 
mind with an intelligible resume, or synopsis of the subject 
or lesson, sufficiently comprehensive to embrace every signif- 
icant fact or thought, all arranged in such order as shall 
exhibit their mutual dependence and relations, and the con- 
clusion to which they tend. This method is especially ap- 
plicable to branches of study which usually occur in the 
later years of the academic course, when the mind is sup- 
posed to be fitted for considerable efforts of understanding 
and reasoning. The recitation of a lesson thus thoroughly 
mastered approaches the highest excellence, in whatever de- 
grees it is able to make oral disclosure of the knowledge so 
acquired in clear, simple language, and logical order, inde- 
pendent of all prompting and interrogation beyond the teach- 
er's single suggestive question, which may be needful in order 
to put the thread of discourse in the pupil's hand. The same 
rule of study and acquisition is equally applicable to the con- 
tents of each branch of a general subject, and to the entire 
treatise. Half the knowledge acquired from books is usual 
ly lost, and the value of the rest impaired in yet higher de- 
grees, from the utter neglect of some orderly, judicious ar 



72 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF 

rangement, adapted to its preservation in the memory and 
its utility to the understanding, whether as a good discipline 
of its powers, or as the instrument of future attainments and 
enjoyments. I think it may be regarded a sound, practical 
maxim, that any book worth reading by a student is worthy 
of being read with such a degree of care as will leave in the 
mind a connected, logical epijtome of what it contains. 

To the method of acquisition wlych I have recommended, 
an objection is likely to occur, to the effect that it demands 
an amount of intellectual effort of which not many minds 
are capable, and to which fewer still are disposed. In reply, 
it will be sufficient to state, that we are inquiring after the 
best means and instruments of mental discipline, which, from 
the nature of the case, do not suppose any exaggerated ac- 
tion of the mind, but only that its ordinary efforts shall be 
put forth in such a direction, and with such aspirations, as 
will tend gradually to establish the best intellectual habits. 
Such a training, carried on to any tolerable degree of perfec- 
tion, must be the result of many endeavors, conducted under 
such enlightened views of education as shall at once secure 
to the mind a measure of the advantages proposed, and grad- 
ually prepare it for the full realization of all that is pledged 
by the theory. 

It is a great mistake, however, to conclude that industry 
must take upon itself additional burdens in order to fulfill 
these conditions. Study derives additional interest, and the 
mind borrows a clearer light from the large, liberal philos- 
ophy that it is proposed shall preside over the educational 
movement. To refer again to classical studies, the various 
sources of interest and illumination suggested as deserving 
the student's regard are each of them likely to be helpful 
to his progress. They shed mutual alleviations and lights 
upon each other, and upon the entire subject of inquiry and 
investigation. They all aid him in obtaining a comprehen- 
sive acquaintance with the ideas and the life of the age long 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 73 

by-gone, in which all the doubtful questions that beset his 
inquiries are most likely to find a satisfactory solution. So, 
also, when the student shall have made some progress in the 
habit of thorough acquisition, and of the logical arrange- 
ment and recollection which I have recommended, he will 
find the labor, both of learning and of remembering, not aug- 
mented, but greatly diminished. Such a method is adapt- 
ed precisely to the constitution and wants of the mind, which 
is baffled by disorder, and swamped by a multitude of facta 
and thoughts thrown upon it without perception or notifica- 
tion of the relations that give them value and significance. 
Once reduce this incomprehensible chaos to a regular system, 
in which each subordinate part shall find its fit place in the 
harmonious whole, and the difficulty, whether of learning 
or of recollecting, will be no longer formidable. The mind, 
rejoicing to do its homage to " Heaven's first law," easily 
follows the " lucidus ordd" through all the intricacies of the 
problem submitted to its sagacity, while the functions of mem- 
ory are almost superseded by the efficacious laws of associa- 
tion, under which each thought and each train of thought 
are attracted to their fitting place by natural affinities, that 
will guard them against oblivion, and hold them forthcom- 
ing and available in time of need. It is, I think, demon- 
strable, that the student who holds himself obliged to learn 
every lesson critically and thoroughly, and to produce a 
clear, intelligible report of it in the recitation-room, will have 
less labor to perform on text-books, taking into account the 
entire college course, than others, who, without meaning to 
incur the shame or the guilt of disreputable indolence and 
neglect, never aspire to any high style of scholastic achieve- 
ments. A good mastery of the elementary principles of lan- 
guage or science, early attained, facilitates future acquisi- 
tions. The mind, too, acquires tone and efficiency of action 
by habituating itself to go with unquestioning energy to the 
bottom of every investigation, while superficial study and the 

D 



74 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF 

habit of penetrating only so far into a subject as may serve 
to conceal the grosser degrees of ignorance, and secure guar- 
antees against egregious failure at examination, gradually 
brings upon the mind a measure of imbecility and self-dis- 
trust incompatible with effective performance. This super' 
ficial method never grapples manfully with difficulties, which, 
however slight at first and easily vincible, become fixed ob- 
structions in the way of satisfactory progress, over whieh the 
mind comes at length to stumble on with a sort of blind dex- 
terity, not unmingled with awe at the near proximity of mys- 
teries to it so profound and incomprehensible. This style of 
scholastic performance reminds us of the degraded agricul- 
ture which formerly prevailed much more than at present. 
The unskillful, plodding farmer went on from year to year, 
forcing a wretched tribute from his barren fields by a rude 
culture which barely stirred their surface. Without attempt- 
ing to penetrate the reluctant soil with a deeper furrow, and 
to clear away, at once and forever, all the obstacles to a fa- 
cile agriculture and an abundant harvest, he blunted his 
plowshare and worried his cattle in a life-long struggle 
against the same fixed or rolling stones, which a little enter- 
prise and a vigorous outlay of vernal and autumnal leisure 
might long since have converted to useful purposes. 

The real, ultimate advantages of thoroughness in study, as 
the sure and only way of making study easy and satisfactory, 
must, I flatter myself, be apparent to all who hear me, with- 
out further argument or illustration. The importance of such 
a method, however, depends on yet higher considerations. 
The habit of treating any subject of investigation slightly, 
and of accepting the conclusion of a proposition with a hu- 
miliating consciousness that the steps and the force of the ar- 
gument are not understood, must, in the endf'result in some 
degree of incapacity to think clearly and reason correctly, and 
the student has every motive to strive to the utmost against 
this incipient fatal blunder in education, which can inspire a 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 75 

wish to bear away from the arena of exercise and discipline 
some adequate preparation for the realities of professional or 
public life. "Whatever it may cost of toil, of watching, of 
reiteration and review, it must be a first principle with the 
student to understand every thing as he advances. To this 
one position he must hold with an unyielding, dogged perse 
verance, which no discouragement, no reluctance to toil, no 
self-indulgence may be able to relax. Each problem left un- 
solved, with a tacit admission that it is too hard a task for 
the mental faculties, besides becoming an embarrassment in 
the way of future progress, and impairing the bravery of 
self-reliance, tends to produce and establish the habit of su- 
perficial investigation. A standard of performance is imper- 
ceptibly fixed, degraded enough in all reason and manliness, 
but which becomes a measure of excellence, below which if 
the student does not frequently sink he is well satisfied, and 
above which he no longer aims. This fundamental omis- 
sion, wherever and by whomsoever made, it should be a pri- 
mary object with the student to supply. I expressed on a 
former occasion, and I here repeat the opinion, that every 
sound mind is fully competent to a mastery of all the studies 
of the academic course. The actual difficulty, however em- 
barrassing, has grown out of some previous omission or neg- 
lect, which diligence in the use of leisure hours or of a va- 
cation would soon remedy. It may be that only a single 
link is wanting to the continuity and completeness of the 
chain. The most complicated mathematical problem is hard 
and unmanageable only because a very simple arithmetical 
or algebraic process was lost sight of in the haste or the neg- 
ligence of the initiatory part of the course. Such a revision 
of the elements of science or of language as may be accom- 
plished in a week, will often illumine the whole subsequent 
scholastic career. 

Though every mind is competent, with good application, 
to understand the studies of our academic course, all do not 



76 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF 

acquire them with the same degree of facility, and, what is 
more material to my present purpose, facility of acquisition 
is no accurate test of intellectual capacity, or of the advance- 
ment made in mental discipline, which is, according to our 
theory, synonymous with education, by any given amount of 
attainment. The best minds are often wont to move with 
the greatest deliberation, and to bestow both time and care- 
ful examination upon the proposition which is henceforward 
to remain deposited in its archives, as well-ascertained, un- 
questionable truth. A quick memory, on the contrary, will 
sometimes seize upon the facts as well as the reasonings of 
the lesson, and treasure them up in its capacious store-house 
with a marvelous, unreasoning rapidity, incompatible with a 
thoughtful exercise of the higher mental faculties, and as lit- 
tle favorable to intellectual discipline. Discipline, which, in 
all our contemplations of the scholastic life, must be kept in 
view as the principal thing, owes its existence and its chief 
improvements to what are denominated hard studies. To 
the bad facility of acquisition, which wins its easy way by 
sheer efforts of memory, it owes no acknowledgments. It 
is from fields of toilsome inquiry, abounding in. nice distinc- 
tions and disquisitions and profound analyses — from fre- 
quent sturdy conflicts with high, complex truth, when the 
faculties are tasked to the utmost, and there is a free de- 
mand for protracted, continuous, intense efforts of attention 
and thought, that the mind comes forth rejoicing in new, 
imperishable strength. Every student who aspires to intel- 
lectual power and distinction must be content to struggle 
for them in some arena which will give to his faculties full 
and strenuous employment. Hard rather than easy studies, 
profound treatises on significant subjects rather than taking, 
flippant literature, should be preferred by those who covet 
the best gifts. The thorough study of Butler's Analogy, or 
some kindred work, often gives the mind an impulse, and 
even a character, that it never loses. 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 77 



Were we to take a hundred boys, of average capacity, from 
the common schools, I am persuaded they might all he well 
fitted, by liberal education, to act a useful and honorable part 
in professional life. Education is able to qualify any compe- 
tent mind for all the duties to which educated men are wont 
to be called. It is discipline, and not brilliant talent, that 
is wanted in those positions where good men do the good that 
is accomplished under the sun. An ordinary mind, well 
trained, is better fitted for all the exigencies of life than the 
greatest genius without mental discipline. Education pre- 
pares men to know and to do all that should be known and 
done ; and the thorough discipline in which it consists, and 
which every sound intellect may attain, is usually of much- 
more value to the individual and to society, than all the cov- 
eted natural endowments which none can command, which 
are sparingly bestowed by heaven, and which do not often 
achieve any thing at all proportionate to the delusive prom- 
ise which so often provokes the envy of those who are intrust- 
ed with only a share of that average capability on the right 
use of which the world's hope depends. 



78 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY 



LECTURE VI. 

OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY AND GOOD TASTE. 

A difficult Problem. — Essentials to the efficiency and completeness of 
Mental Discipline. — Attention to minor Matters. — Vices of Manner 
when habitual, difficult to eradicate. — Vicious Pronunciation of 
common English Words. — The Remedy to be applied in Youth, if 
ever. — The correction of Faults does not require Talent and Genius, 
but Humility and Resolution. — Awkwardness of Attitude and Ges- 
ture. — Slang Phrases. — Corrupt Language leads to corruption of 
Taste. — Grossness cultivated by the Student clings to the Man in 
after Life. — Self-reforming Power the distinguishing Privilege of 
the Young. — Labor, Self-denial, Patience, Perseverance requisite. — 
Analogy from the business of the Gardener. — Attention fixed on 
Things to be avoided rather than on Things to be acquired. — The 
removal of a Fault more important than the acquisition of an Ac- 
complishment. — Simplicity of Action. — Unambitious Style. — Purity 
of Language. — Use of strong Epithets. — Illustrations. — Effects. — 
False Rhetoric leads to false Logic. 

Were it required of any one of us to make a full enumer- 
ation of all the qualifications, the results of education, which 
combine in furnishing an educated man with the efficiency 
and momentum requisite to usefulness and respectability in 
a professional career, it would be found, I think, on due re- 
flection, that a problem had been proposed, very comprehen- 
sive in its import, and by no means easy of solution. It will 
be agreed on all hands that a young man, in order to act his 
part well on such a theatre, must go forth to his work with 
all the advantages of a thorough intellectual training, with 
a vigorous, symmetrical development of his mental capabil- 
ities, a graceful, many-sided culture, his tastes refined, his 
imagination chastened, and all his aspirations made manly 
and pure by their habitual subjection to the control of pure 
and elevating motives. All that in my previous Lectures I 



AND GOOD TASTE. 79 

have insisted* on as essential to the efficiency and complete- 
ness of mental discipline, should be his, together with m any- 
more intellectual accomplishments which it has not fallen in 
with my present design to consider, or which inadvertence 
and the brevity imposed by our circumstances have led me 
to omit. 

In addition to this rather formidable list of requirements, 
there are other conditions of success hardly less imperative, 
for which provision must also be made, if ever, during the 
forming years of academic life. It is, perhaps, because the 
world is a more competent judge of accomplishments which 
may be easily acquired than it is of higher and more difficult 
attainments, that it exacts them with greater rigor, and toler- 
ates deficiencies less indulgently. The world demands, and, 
I must think, not unreasonably, of those who aspire to be its 
teachers, and to be intrusted with the management of its most 
precious interests, a decent respect for its good taste, and it 
listens incredulously to high intellectual pretensions, set forth 
with clumsy diction and ungainly gesture. It is usually 
much more offended with false syntax than with false logic, 
and more readily pardons a blunder in argument than a trip 
in pronunciation. Many a one goes forth from academic 
shades not inadequately furnished with such qualifications as 
diligent study and faithful teaching are able to supply, and 
deficient only in those which would have cost him no addition- 
al toil to swell the triumph of competitors, his inferiors in ev- 
ery thing which he has been wont to regard as worthy of the 
attention of an intelligent, educated man. We may complain 
as we will of the injustice or the folly of the world's awards, 
but it must be made much wiser, and must grow much kinder- 
than it is, before its wounded self-respect will consent to toler- 
ate, in educated men, such habitual offenses against propriety 
a.id good taste as every schoolboy is able to detect, and which 
it is the shame of schoolboys not to have corrected. Almost 
any degree of eccentricity and imperfection of utterance or 



80 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY 

action is allowed to men of acknowledged gerfius and great 
reputation, but, in the great majority of aspirants for public 
favor and influence, such faults become frequent and efficient 
causes of disheartening, disreputable failure. Most earnest- 
ly would I endeavor to impress upon those who now hear 
me my own convictions of the great practical importance of 
this subject. 

It is with no slight mortification that, as the result of my 
observation and experience, I must entertain very moderate 
expectations of success in any attempt to reform those vices 
of manner which have become habitual, and which usually 
enjoy the privileges of asylum in the favor of a sort of impe- 
rial indifference, that, because these are confessedly only pet- 
ty defects, will insist upon regarding it a very petty business 
to intermeddle with them. The student who makes a pas- 
time of learning Conic Sections, and calculates the sun's 
eclipses for a hundred years, baffles the efforts of all his 
teachers to keep his hands away from his pockets, or the 
skirts and button-holes of his coat, in his oratorical essays. 
The youth who has gained a complete mastery over "the dif- 
ficulties of Greek and Roman literature, and is above all 
reproach in the matter of dactyls and iambics, continues to 
maintain his own peculiar method of pronouncing and ac- 
centing a number of English words, with which it is his un- 
conscious purpose to afflict fastidious ears as long as he lives. 
He entered college, it may be, a stanch pat-riot. He remains 
an unflinching pat-riot throughout his four years of trial, in 
spite of all winning arts and efforts to seduce him from his 
sturdy allegiance to the black-balled vulgarism, and into the 
wide world he goes forth at last with pat-riotism inscribed 
upon the banner which he throws to the breeze. One of the 
most difficult works which a teacher is called to perform is 
often that of eliminating, from the action or the utterance, 
faults which a small degree of attention and self-culture 
would at once correct, but which, having become habitual, 



AND GOOD TASTE. 8] 



no external influence or skill, however faithful and prolonged 
their agency, can remedy. I have, in some instances, la- 
bored through a series of years to induce intelligent, excel- 
lent students to he sparing in their vocal performances of 
such questionable peculiarities as does, and been or ben, sloth 
and nothing, but with so little success that my well-meant 
efforts seemed to rouse up some degree of resentment, as if 
some design was entertained against a cherished birthright, 
or some indignity meditated against the family honor. So 
deeply and ineradicably do these depreciating peccadilloes 
become imbedded in minds of a certain texture, that it is not 
more difficult to cure the trolling brogue of a fresh Connaught 
immigrant than it is to correct the bald, vulgar provincial- 
ism, in phrase and utterance, of a liberally-educated man. 

I dwell upon this topic at greater length because I think 
myself enabled to hope that the discussion may be suggestive 
of practical applications, and even of beneficent reforms. It 
seems to me to be one of the least excusable of the delinquen- 
cies chargeable upon intelligent, upright students, that they 
should'mar the symmetry and impair the efficiency of their 
education by the toleration of petty faults, which a little 
painstaking and resolute dealing with themselves would 
eradicate at once and forever. 

Perfection in oratory, as well as in manners and conversa- 
tion, are dependent upon favorable natural endowments. The 
rarity of such gifts may very well repress an unreasonable am- 
bition, but it constitutes no ground for discouragement, since 
they are not indispensable to eminent usefulness. It may 
be freely admitted that the highest excellence, which always 
supposes an unusual combination of fortunate circumstances, 
is not, and can not be generally attainable. Q,uite practi- 
cable it is, however, for the student to eradicate such faults as 
have just passed in review before us, and these are, in not a 
few instances, chief obstacles to success. Graceful action, a 
musical voice, a fine person, are not always to be had for 

D 2 



82 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY 

wooing, but ungainly attitudes and gestures, vicious intona- 
tions, false accents and emphasis, are usually the growth of 
carelessness and bad training, and they are always vincible, 
at least so far as they constitute barriers to a useful outlay 
of educated talent. 

It is because I deem the sentiment not only unquestionably 
correct, but of great practical importance, that I repeat the 
opinion already expressed, that every young man who enters 
upon the work of education with an average outfit of the 
mental and physical capabilities which belong to the species, 
may qualify himself by an intelligent and painstaking cul- 
ture for usefulness and respectability in the pursuits of pro- 
fessional and lettered life. He may become a good general 
scholar, and he may become a proficient in any branch of hu- 
man knowledge which interest, taste, or favoring circum- 
stances may induce him to pursue. This good endowment 
of natural faculties, and the good training which we have 
supposed, constitute the substratum and the main elements 
of intellectual character and efficiency. "Without these qual 
ifications, no human being can exert any salutary, lasting in- 
fluence in the world, or achieve any thing worthy of being 
held in honorable remembrance. Possessed of these re- 
sources, none but the victim of Ins own follies or of an unre- 
lenting destiny need fail of acting a good and manly part on 
any theatre where educated talent is the first condition of 
success. Here are the real sources of intellectual efficiency 
They may be augmented and emblazoned by the rarer gifts 
of creative genius and poetic imagination, but, independently 
of such brilliant accompaniments, they are fully competent 
to perform the tasks which human society is accustomed to 
impose upon intelligent, virtuous men. Failures, when they 
occur under the favoring conditions here supposed, are always 
the result of indolence, or negligence, or recklessness, or of 
other causes implying still more grievous derelictions of 
manliness and virtue. 



AND GOOD TASTE. 83 

I recur again to the case of the young, in whom these good 
natural endowments, improved by liberal study, are embar- 
rassed and rendered partially inefficient and unavailable by 
petty defects or faults, which, being offensive to the public 
taste, provoke prejudice and disgust, and so become serious 
obstacles to usefulness. It is certainly much to be deplored 
that so many elements of success, the gift of bounteous Na- 
ture, improved by so much painstaking culture, should be 
damaged and impeded in their action by petty faults and 
blemishes, which, however fixed in the habits, do not pene- 
trate below the surface of the character. For the encourage- 
ment of those who regard even the slightest improvement of 
their means of usefulness a legitimate object of endeavor, I 
will suggest that the eradication of the faults to which our 
attention is now directed is a very different undertaking from 
that of acquiring new accomplishments. I think it has be- 
fallen all of us, at some time, or other, when prompted by 
some friendly monitor, or by our own sense of propriety, to 
adorn some corporeal or mental performance with additional 
ease and grace, to feel that a most indefinite, intangible ob- 
ject has been proposed, difficult to be realized even in con- 
ception, and grievously difficult to be embodied in action. 
We may be painfully conscious of the deficiency, and yet ut- 
terly unfurnished with the ideas and the taste which would 
enable us to supply it. Now the correction of faults is for- 
tunately a more positive and tangible business. The demand 
is not for the skill and the genius that can model and create, 
but for the humility that will be taught, and the resolution 
that will root up and ostracize. If our friends are so foolish 
as to ignore or conceal our faults, we shall probably find 
more frankness, and more real friendship, in rivals and ene- 
mies, in whom the critical organ is wont to be fully developed. 

"Whoever is desirous of correcting such faults as are the 
6ubject of our present consideration, need be at no loss for the 
requisite illumination. If there is first a willing mind, there 



84 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY 

will be no lack of either lights or helps. The chief obstacles 
to success in such an attempt are to be encountered in the be- 
ginning, and they will usually be found to exist in the very 
slight importance attached to such reforms, or in the false 
pride that thinks it a degradation to make an improvement 
which is deemed equivalent to confessing an^ imperfection. 
Let us suppose that an earnest experiment is to be made upon 
the written and spoken language, with the intention of rid- 
ding it of all errors and ineleganeies, and of cultivating a 
style both for conversation and for more formal occasions, 
which shall never offend a refined ear. The scholastic ex- 
ercises in speaking and composition always afford many more 
suggestions on this subject than are usually heeded, and I 
must think that any student really anxious for improvement 
may so far profit by such exhibitions, and by the criticisms 
ihey are wont to call forth, as to cure effectually all the er- 
rors which most frequently occur. This remark applies both 
to action and to utterance, and it seems to me very obvious 
that nothing but indifference to the subject can perpetuate 
faults in attitude, gesture, and pronunciation, which are strik- 
ingly at variance with good taste and established princi- 
ples. It will prove a more arduous, though seldom a fruit- 
less undertaking, to extend this unsparing reform to other oc- 
casions, not comprehended in the teacher's domain, which, 
however, often become chief sources of a corrupting influence 
upon language and taste. Forms of expression are constant- 
ly working their way into currency in the thoughtless inter- 
course of young men, recognized at first as vulgar slang, and 
tolerated only for their grotesque, absurd extravagance, which, 
in the usurping spirit that belongs to such vices, gradually 
impress their complexion upon the colloquial style, of which 
they become the chief staple. Once habitual, this style en- 
croaches upon the properties of more serious occasions, and 
the hopeful imitator of Jack Downing and Davy Crockett, 
who is the envied centre of merriment in his own laugh 



AND GOOD TASTE. S5 



ing circle, becomes its unconscious subject in the drawing- 
room. 

From corruption in language there is only a brief step to 
corruption of taste ; and I never listen to a sparkling genius 
of this particular type, fluent in the savory diction of Sam 
Slick and his compeers, without a painful conviction that he 
has put himself under tutors whose vulgarizing influence it 
will require a great deal of classical training to counteract. 
From habitual intimacy with such a style of conversation, 
the mind contracts a certain infection, a proclivity to what 
is too low for an educated man — an appetite for a species 
of humor that is broad to grossness and vulgarity, for which, 
I fear, education and the mature judgments of manhood will 
never be able to find a perfect cure. It is for the student 
himself, or for no one, to apply both prevention and remedy. 
He may check the still pliant tendency before it ossifies into 
habit. He may, perhaps, expel the virus before the constitu- 
tion is tainted with incurable disease, but I am compelled to 
regard this as one of the most common sources of a deteriora- 
ting, vulgarizing influence, which so often thwarts and coun- 
teracts the natural tendency of liberal education to purify the 
taste and elevate the character. 

The natural soil for this fantastical diction, which has no 

; • 

recommendation except in its intrinsic obscurity, is found in 
the uneducated, or half-uneducated mind of a large and in- 
creasing class of young men, whose gregarious occupations 
create a demand for the talent and the material of conver- 
sation which their low standard of intelligence is not compe- 
tent to satisfy. By them this degraded currency is naturally 
welcomed as an easy substitute for the knowledge, taste, and 
wit with which good cultivation, if not Nature, has refused 
to supply them. The most exorbitant forms of speech, in 
doing violence to all sense and reason, cling to the memory 
with the greater tenacity. Their destitution of all specific, 
intelligible meaning fits them all the better to be the medi 



86 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY 

urn of a social intercourse, into which thought and common 
sense enter only in their lowest and least appreciable forms, 
while in the enormous breadth of their gross humor they 
are well adapted to ears less delicate, if not more elongated, 
than usually fall to individuals belonging to the human spe- 
cies. To a careless observer, there is often something enter- 
taining in. listening to this substitute for wisdom and wit, 
when, on the closing of the work-shops, it becomes vocal 
along the side-walks, and an unreflecting benevolence would 
as soon deprive these aspirants for the honors of a gentleman 
of their reeking cigars, as these aspirants for the honors of a 
wit of the only vocabulary in which they know how to as- 
sert their pretensions. This same benevolence, however, be- 
comes more thoughtful, and, having some mission of truth, or 
virtue, or religion to these young men of a strange language, 
will not be long in reaching a painful conviction that this 
egregious gibberish of which it had forborne to form any opin- 
ion more unfavorable than that it was foolish and absusd, 
has really penetrated into the character. From so often 
standing in the place of good sense, it has finally supplant- 
ed it. From being the dialect in which the mind is wont 
to put forth its most pretending essays in thought and elo- 
quence, it becomes the only vehicle on which it feels compe- 
tent to embark its conceptions. Low, ludicrous associations 
come at length to attach themselves to the most serious sub- 
jects, and the highest questions of morals and religion grad- 
ually lose all influence over a mind habituated to contem- 
plate them, as it does every thing else, in such lights only as 
may find the most ready expression in this debased and de- 
basing dialect. 

I have bestowed a paragraph upon a very palpable and 
undignified error, as it is developed in uneducated minds, 
because the illustration may be more striking and effective. 
The vitiating tendencies in the student guilty of a similar 
folly will operate with equal force, but are likely to be par- 



AND GOOD TASTE. 87 

tially counteracted by the nature of his pursuits. A culti- 
vated mind has acquired some power to resist the deteriora- 
ting agency, and it finds a measure of protection against the 
contagion in the vigor and the multitude of its own activi- 
ties. I should fail, however, of giving expression to my set- 
tled conviction, did I not ascribe to the fault in question a 
very considerable as well as baleful influence over the de- 
velopment of intellectual character. The tender plants of 
taste and genius are choked by these rank, overshadowing 
thorns. The delicate, susceptible mind gets a tinge and a 
bias ; the style of thought an insidious, contaminating infu- 
sion of ineradicable grossness. I very much doubt whether 
any one who has for a series of years subjected his tastes to 
the deteriorating influences supposed, will ever after become 
capable of that nice susceptibility to the finer proprieties and 
beauties of language, on which the highest excellence in com- 
position and oratory so much depend. So far as I may rely 
upon my own recollection and observation, I can confidently 
declare that I have always seen the grossness which was 
cultivated in the student cling with inexorable tenacity to 
the man in after life. No high public position, no familiar- 
ity with polished society, no after endeavors, were able fully 
to remove the blemish — to purge the infection which grew 
up with the years of academic life. They were wooed and 
welcomed when the mind was all plastic and susceptible. 
They are bound up in its destiny by inevitable habit. 

The correction of these petty faults and impertinences, 
which, together, often exert a very appreciable and deterio- 
rating influence upon the prospects and character of educa- 
ted men, must be effected, if effected at all, by a vigilant 
self-inspection and control, instituted during the forming pe- 
riod (?f education, before such habits have become confirmed, 
and conducted in the spirit of an indomitable purpose and an 
unsparing faithfulness. While nothing is to be regarded as 
trivial or unimportant which may detract from the highest 



OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETV 



efficiency of the intellect, or interfere in the slightest degree 
with the harmonious, graceful, perfect mental development 
which it is the business of education to achieve, no obstacle 
should be deemed insuperable, no resistance invincible, before 
the indomitable ameliorating process to which every student 
resolved to be a man may triumphantly subjugate all his 
mental powers and habitudes. The possession of this self- 
forming and self-reforming power is the distinguishing attri- 
bute and privilege of young men. In the energy which 
bravely asserts this high prerogative, and the indolence that 
yields it up in the face of every difficulty, reside the true 
sources of the honor and the shame that are to give their 
complexion to the history of manhood. Unquestionably, the 
manly exertion of so high a function will involve labor, and 
self-denial, and patience, and perseverance ; but all these are 
virtues worth cultivating for their own sake. They are me- 
dia of the noblest discipline, and it were the part of wisdom 
to multiply our relations to them, as the best auxiliaries in 
all the enterprises which are likely to yield, either to youth 
or to manhood, either dignity or enjoyment. 

It is not well to begin the work of education and self-cul- 
ture by an over-careful study of labor-saving expedients. He 
who has conceived the purpose of making of himself so con- 
siderable a thing as a man, may, at the outset, lay his ac- 
count with no trivial expenditure of toil and painstaking. 
The raw material of such a fabric behooves to be passed 
through refining processes ; and this cunning age, so famous 
for easy methods and shortened routes, still blushes to con- 
fess, as the result of all its cherished theories and experi- 
ments, that the crowning improvement which is to divorce 
wisdom from work exists only in posse. Even the fabulous 
poets, who could transform flowers and butterflies into 
nymphs and goddesses, never ventured to place wisdom any 
where but upon the loftiest summits, inaccessible to mortals 
except by slow and toilsome steps. 



AND GOOD TASTE. 89 

Presuming the student to have gained his own cordial as- 
sent, in full view of all the detail and duration of the work 
before him, to the reformatory efforts needful for thorough, 
comprehensive self-culture, I may repeat the suggestion that 
his main business will much resemble the gardener's, who 
trusts to the well-prepared soil for the growth of sweet flow- 
ers and delicious fruits, but labors diligently for the eradica- 
tion of the noxious vegetation that conceals their beauty and 
listorts their proportions. A good mind, in the absence of 
disturbing influences, and under judicious training, has a 
spontaneous tendency to symmetrical, graceful development. 
Bountiful Nature has sown the good seed, which finds the 
most favorable conditions for germination and growth in the 
scholastic occupations usually embraced in the curriculum 
of liberal education. Under all ordinary circumstances, such 
studies provide, in the best way known to modern science 
and experience, for the harmonious manifestation and im- 
provement of the mental faculties. Thus secure of the more 
tangible benefits, by an earnest co-operation with the general 
scholastic movement, the student is at liberty to direct his 
special solicitudes to the correction of faults and the removal 
of defects, usually the result of accidental causes. Whether 
his attention shall be turned toward errors in language, or 
utterance, or action, or manners, it will be chiefly fixed upon 
things to be avoided rather than on things to be desired or to 
be done. In all the changes that shall be effected, it is quite 
possible there will not be the positive addition of a single ac- 
complishment. In this removal, however, of the faults and 
the ungainliness which were most noticeable, a freer scope 
is given for the development and the spontaneous play of the 
better innate tendencies, which are constantly invited into 
manifestation by the good general culture. 

We may have a great deal less of gesticulation under the 
new regime that proscribes all improper gestures. The vo- 
cabulary, which was distended by much of all the vulgarism, 



90 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY 

provincialism, and slang which the West and the East can 
supply, will certainly be reduced in its compass and copious- 
ness when nothing shall remain but such a pure, simple 
dialect as befits the mouth of a scholar and a gentleman. 
Something may, at first, be lost to conscious dignity when 
the cigar no more illuminates the evening promenade — 
something to conscious ease in making the descent from a 
two to a four-legged chair. The rejection of so much that 
had become customary and spontaneous, will very likely leave, 
at least, some transient sense of a want. The good nature 
and the good culture, however, upon whose domain the os- 
tracized follies were manifest intruders, will be forthcoming, 
with their genial arts, to build up the waste places in forms 
of new grace and beauty. 

It may be added, that the removal of a fault is usually 
much more important than the acquisition of an accomplish- 
ment. The attitude and the movement, which are no longer 
chargeable with ungainliness or constraint, have become ap- 
propriate and even graceful. Language and style, purged of 
the faults which due attention to the subject readily detects, 
are proper and pure, and verge upon elegance, and now that 
these vicious and vitiating elements are removed out of the 
way of improvement, study and composition, and reading and 
society, all contribute to an ever-progressive refinement and 
excellence. 

It will be perceived that the methods of corrective reform 
here recommended all tend to simplicity of action and char- 
acter — to unambitious style of conversation and composition, 
and to repose of manners — to the rejection of all affectation, 
artifice, and exaggeration, a condition of things precisely the 
most favorable to a free, full, truthful development of what- 
ever capabilities for good Nature has bestowed. I shall 
close this Lecture with the suggestion of a deeply philo- 
sophical argument in favor of cultivating simplicity of lan- 
guage. It has been charged, by a distinguished female wri- 



•■'. 



AND GOOD TASTE. 91 

ter, upon the young of her own, sex, that they are specially 
addicted to the use of exaggerated phrases and epithets in 
conversation, and the practice is very properly stigmatized by 
her as being excessively stupid and vulgarizing. I do not 
imagine that this fault is confined to either sex, though it, no 
doubt, prevails mostly among the young, and -my objection to 
it goes somewhat deeper than a question of good taste. You 
will readily comprehend the special extravagance which I 
have in view, as I presume you all have, within the circle 
of your acquaintance, a number of exemplifications of it. 
Such persons are not content with expressing with reasona- 
ble precision the idea or quality under consideration, but 
would add to its impressiveness, and make what, it may be, 
is somewhat commonplace, startling by the use of strong epi- 
thets. With such persmis slight imperfections are horrid, 
and slight inconveniences horrible. They are wont to be 
filled with dreadful apprehensions, have dismal nights, and 
awful weather. Sights that awake little emotion in others, 
are perfectly beautiful, splendid, magnificent, or they are 
odious, frightful, detestable. Their promenades or visits are 
'perfectly delightful, and their cherries perfectly delicious. 
One is on the point of congratulating these fortunate people 
on possessing several friends who are all exquisitely beau- 
tiful and perfectly elegant — the best, the noblest — the most 
intelligent, the most remarkable in some virtue, accomplish- 
ment, or talent in the wide world, but for the fact, soon dis- 
closed in offsets, that they have as many enemies equally 
worthy of epithets most adapted to shadow forth the mar- 
velous in vice, stupidity, or bad breeding. Such practical 
youths do not disapprove merely — they hate, detest, abom- 
inate. They are' not displeased or angry, but absolutely 
triad. What to others may appear not quite celestial, but, 
as the world goes, passable enough, is, in their vocabulary, at 
the very best, abominable, and very likely infernal. We 
do not stop to note the gross violation of charity, and good 



92 OFFENSES AGAINST PROIK.IETY 

taste, and common sense involved in such extravagances, not 
of good breeding, which is always offended by this poor am- 
bition for the striking and the unusual. "We mark only the 
far higher offense against the rights of the intellect. The 
proper function of language is the truthful expression of ideas, 
and the more exactly it accomplishes this end, the more per- 
fectly does it answer its fit and proper calling. The first, 
the second, and the third thing with the student of language 
should be always to use the precise term which exhibits, in 
its true form and dimensions, the intellectual prototype of 
which it professes to make conveyance to the eyes and ears of 
others. This habit of accuracy once established, the thought 
becomes associative with the most fit and expressive word, 
and they mutually suggest each other, even to the most rapid 
speaker or writer. This unspeakable advantage is forfeited 
by the senseless exaggeration now the subject of our criti- 
cism, and the victim of so bald a method of winning distinc- 
tion, if he chance to have an idea to communicate, will prob- 
ably have to choose out of a troop of extravagant epithets 
which press in upon him in his time of need — a promiscuous 
mob, subject to no mental law, and all, probably, unadapted 
to his purpose. The thought and the word have been forced 
out of their natural relations, and no longer suggest each 
other. 

Again ; the silent processes of thought are carried on in 
language which is really as much the medium of thinking as 
it is of expressing thought. In the words which we employ 
in conversation and writing, and in the sense attached to 
them in our daily intercourse, are our unuttered thoughts 
likely to enshrine themselves in the chambers of the mind, 
awaiting, in that precise combination with the words, fit oc- 
casions for outward expression. It is easy to perceive how 
the exaggerated speaking, which we have seen to be little 
better than habitual falsehood, must introduce the same spu- 
rious element into the thoughts and the reasoning. The false 



AND GOOD TASTE. 93 

rhetoric becomes in this way the source of false logic, and 
necessitates exaggeration and confusion in the working of the 
mental powers. It is worth while for the student to medi- 
tate thoughtfully upon these subtle relations, and to keep 
himself apprised of latent causes of mischief, which operate 
all tht more effectually for being overlooked or contemned. 



94 THE FORMATION OF 



LECTURE VII. 

THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. 

Nature and Power of Habit. — Character widely different from Reputa- 
tion. — It is made up of a Man's real Qualities and Accomplishments. 
— Latent Agencies incessantly at work. — Peculiar Impressibility of 
the youthful Mind. — Far more so than that of Childhood or mature 
Manhood. — Germs of Good and Evil rapidly developed at College. — 
Practical importance of the prudential Regulations of Academic Life. 
— System and Regularity. — Punctuality. — Order. — A Defense against 
the Encroachments of Indolence. — Character modified by Associa- 
tions. — Laws of Academic Institutions. — They are its Ideal, its Model. 
— Why they do not always produce the desired Result. — Young Men 
are Free Agents. 

Throughout the "brief course of Lectures of which this, 
for the present, at least, will be the conclusion, you have not 
failed, young gentlemen, to recognize the presence of one per- 
vading, overruling idea. I adverted at the outset to the na- 
ture and power of habit, and to its manifold significant re- 
lations to the business of education. In discussing the mo- 
tives which exert an influence upon the student's progress so 
strong and characterizing, I called your attention, not to tran- 
sient impulses and vanishing results, but to such as are per- 
manent, and as impress upon the mind habitual tendencies 
and abiding aptitudes. Intellectual discipline, which is, per- 
haps, the best definition of education, is only another form 
of expression for the good mental habits with which the stu- 
dent should become endowed in the labors and conflicts of his 
scholastic career. Education seeks, throughout the long suc- 
cession of its experiments and exercises, to improve, to the full 
extent of their capabilities, the several faculties of the mind, 
and it gives its name to the group of conservative habits to 
which is intrusted the preservation of all the precious fruits 



CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. 95 

of so much protracted, painstaking endeavor. It was under 
the guidance of the same pervading idea, and for the pur- 
pose of preventing or correcting injurious habits, that I ad- 
verted to improprieties and petty offenses againt good taste 
or good manners, which very intelligent and well-educated 
men sometimes allow, by becoming habitual, to impair the 
value and influence of literary accomplishments. 

Education, then, when spoken of as the result, and not the 
process of intellectual training, consists in a certain number 
of mental habits and aptitudes, the product of the scholastic 
culture. It furnishes most, but not all of the elements that 
are combined in the character of an educated man. Char- 
acter is more comprehensive than education, which it em- 
braces, together with a variety of ingredients derived from 
other sources. It is the amount of all the efficiencies with 
which an educated man is furnished for the discharge of his 
duties. It is an accurate expressio?i of all his aptitudes for 
fulfilling the proper functions of an intelligent human being. 
Character, you will perceive, which is thus made up of a 
man's real qualities and accomplishments, is widely different 
from reputation, which is but the estimate, often false as 
well as changeful, that is placed upon him by the world. 

All that has been advanced in our previous discussions in 
regard to the theory and practice of the scholastic life, is 
strictly applicable to the subject of this concluding Lecture, 
the Formation of Character in College. In addition to the 
teacher's faithfulness, and the pupil's diligence, there are oth- 
er agencies, not contemplated or provided for in the scholastic 
institute, which are very powerful, as well as ever active in 
their operation upon the youthful community. The student, 
during- the years of his academic residence, dwells in the 
midst of modifying, transforming influences, that, from many 
unsuspected, inevitable sources, flow out upon him, and, 
scarcely less than his own and his teacher's efforts, give 
form and complexion to his subsequent history. Let us de- 



96 THE FORMATION OF 

vote the present occasion to some brief consideration of these 
latent, less tangible agencies, which have not fallen within 
the range of our previous discussions. 

It would not, probably, be correct to affirm, in regard to 
the period of life usually spent in college, that it is more sus- 
ceptible than any other to modifying influences. The con- 
stitution of infancy and childhood is, no doubt, still more del- 
icate and impressible, and is wont to undergo greater and 
more rapid changes under the action of surrounding circum- 
stances. Indeed, it is the very rapidity of such changes, and 
the facility with which they are effected on a mental con- 
dition so tender and flexible, and withal so prone to imita- 
tion, that protect the young against the formation of fixed 
habits at a period when they must be destitute of the dis- 
cretion and experience that ought to preside over a process 
so important. The swift advances of childhood outstrip the 
growth of habits, and keep the elements of mental character 
in a state of fusion and movement, incompatible with receiv- 
ing or retaining any very determinate or enduring impres- 
sions. In this incapacity to take on and preserve new and 
permanent intellectual lineaments, childhood resembles mid- 
dle life and old age, much more than either of these resembles 
the period usually occupied with academic pursuits. The in- 
cessant transitions of the one, and the stubborn immobility of 
the other, are alike unfavorable to the formation and estab- 
lishment of permanent mental habits. Between these two 
points in the mind's progress and history lies the region of 
fertility, and sunshine, and showers, where culture is omnipo- 
tent, and where, in the absence of skillful culture, a luxuriant 
growth, however worthless or pernicious, springs up'unbidden. 
It is no exaggeration to say of a college peopled with eager 
youth at this eminently forming age, that it is a very focus 
of intense and effective influences. Independent of all that 
is taught and all that is learned, causes are here vigorously 
at work that are sure to model the character and give it form 



CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. 97 

and pressure for all future time. It is, indeed, the appoint- 
ed time of change, when pliable, impressible boyhood gives 
place to the harder sinew and more rigid features of the 
man. In the family circle, amid the sympathies and safe- 
guards of home, where the inevitable transition may be made 
under conditions most favorable to benignant results, this 
period of human life is, above all others, trying and decisive 
of the destinies of the future. In college, the blessed domin- 
ion of domestic affections is measurably suspended or super- 
seded, and the manifold ties, before so powerful to restrain 
the waywardness and inexperience of youth from gross aber- 
rations, usually fall into the inefficiency of enfeebled, unsus- 
tained sentiments. In this new, unsheltered position, the un- 
conscious, unresisting youth is subjected to a multitude of 
powerful influences unknown to his previous history, and un- 
provided for by the maxims and habits in accordance with 
which his life has hitherto been conducted. Yielding, pene- 
trable, plastic, he breathes an atmosphere vital with trans- 
forming agencies. Himself the overflowing source of an ir- 
repressible, outgoing efficiency, forever busy in modifying and 
molding the character of his associates, he is, at the same 
time, the very attractive centre of a thousand confluent 
streams, no less potent and eager to tinge his nature with 
their own various hues and properties. With natural tend- 
encies to transition and transformation so manifold and ur- 
gent, and under so many circumstances so adapted and effi- 
cacious, there must needs be a rapid formation of character. 
Each germ of good or evil is hurried forward into a rapid 
development by a highly-stimulating process. It is nothing 
that the agents and subjects of this transforming process are 
wholly unconscious of the revolution that is passing before 
their eyes and upon their own nature. This unconscious- 
ness can not retard the progress of change when the laws of 
our being render change inevitable, and leave nothing to hu- 
man freedom but the prerogative of determining whether it 

E 



98' THE FORMATION OF 

will be the victim of these irresistible tendencies or whether 
it will be their guide. 

It is no part of my design, as you will please observe, to 
represent the powerful tide of influences which play inces- 
santly upon the student's exposed position, in which his en- 
tire academic life is immersed, as wholly vicious and corrupt- 
ing. Such a view of the subject would awaken solicitude, 
and even despair, but would not be suggestive of any lessons 
of practical worth. It would be unwise, and perhaps dan- 
gerous, to enter upon a voyage without some acquaintance 
with the force and situation of the various currents to which 
our bark must be exposed, but it by no means follows that 
the agitations of the sea may not be weathered without dis- 
aster, and even be made subservient both to safety and speed. 
The delicate susceptibilities of the youthful mind, and the 
genial hospitality with which it throws wide open all its por- 
tals, and proclaims broad welcome to whatever visitants may 
please to enter, are not to be contemplated chiefly as sources 
of danger, but rather as offering the most favorable condi- 
tions for liberal culture, and the production of fine, elevated 
character. 

This plastic, ductile, impressible nature, with its precious 
freight of aspirations, tendencies, capacities, and liabilities, 
is the great central fact to which all the arrangements and 
appliances of education, and all the efforts of self-culture 
must be adapted and directed. Such a reference has been 
kept in view in our previous discussions of college studies, 
and of the motives, methods, and habits most favorable to 
improvement. The minor arrangement and requisitions con- 
nected with the order and administration of a place of edu- 
cation are only wise and salutary in proportion as they con- 
sult the class of wants here indicated. 

It is in view of this peculiar impressibility of the youthful 
mind, and its exuberant tendencies to receive new habitudes 
and modifications from the molding agency to which *t is 



CHARACTER. IN COLLEGE. 99 



exposed, that the prudential regulations, and the accidental 
circumstances and adjuncts of academic life, assume a prac- 
tical importance very worthy to be taken into our account 
of the causes that are efficient in the formation of character. 
The system and regularity indispensable in the scholastic 
community, where labor is co-operative, and occasions for 
concurrent action return with almost every hour, exert an 
important though indirect influence, which is likely to estab- 
lish habits, of punctuality and order, of inestimable value in 
every department of either professional or active life. This 
methodical arrangement of duties — this precise apportion- 
ment and distribution of tasks and times, is, with a large 
class of minds, quite indispensable as a condition of efficien- 
cy and success. A few individuals, rich in the unfailing 
resources of constitutional vivacity and enthusiasm, and act- 
ing always in the presence of the highest motives, are some- 
times able to make respectable attainments in knowledge, 
and, what is yet more rare, to keep up, amid the distracting 
scenes of life, a good measure of intellectual activity, by such 
desultory efforts as are possible in the absence of a judicious 
controlling plan. With the great majority, however, system, 
which implies at least punctuality, order, perseverance, is a 
prime necessary of intellectual life, all of whose movements 
become embarrassed, uncertain, and feeble when they lack 
the guidance, support, and facility always afforded by an in- 
telligible, judicious, and authoritative 2^'ogramme. 

Such a law to live and work by, when it has become deeply 
rooted in the habits, becomes a chief element of mental pow- 
er. It is a potent defense against the encroachments of pleas- 
ure and indolence, and provides a sanctuary for the perform- 
ance of intellectual rites in the midst of the world's bustle 
and distractions. It would not be easy to exaggerate the 
great practical importance of cordially accepting, and vigor- 
ously maintaining through life, the habits of order and punc- 
tuality, and of the judicious distribution of duties and time. 



100 THE FORMATION OF 

into which it is a spontaneous tendency of the under-graduate 
career to induct the student by easy and scarcely perceptible 
degrees. Here, beyond all doubt, resides the great secret of 
success. Ordinary minds, working upon a plan — working 
systematically — achieve what, without such helps, is utterly 
impossible to the greatest genius. In fact, great intellectual 
performances are not often the product of minds of the best 
natural gifts. Such minds are wont to be corrupted by fa- 
cility of acquisition, and to rely more upon special efforts 
than upon persevering industry. Science owes its triumphs 
chiefly to the race of patient, plodding workers, who are con- 
tent to pay the price of wisdom, and whose steady, life-long 
progress in knowledge usually leaves behind the whole mul- 
titude of competitors, who so easily outstripped them at the 
beginning of the race. It is precisely this want of the order- 
ly arrangement and strict punctuality, and of the mental in- 
dustry and mental activity which they are wont to conserve 
and sustain — virtues which a college residence tends, above 
any other discipline, to establish — it is precisely this want 
that cripples the energies of the majority of educated men, 
and leaves them aground midway in their career. It is be- 
cause the educated physician follows no plan, and consecrates 
no hour to study, that he sinks into a mere man of routine 
and precedents. It is because the Christian minister has no 
established order in his work that the duties of the parish and 
the duties of the study are forever in conflict, and that both 
classes of duty are in the end neglected. An illustration, 
equally instructive, might be derived from every department 
of activity in which educated men are wont to engage. 

Observe that this efficient element of character, than which 
I know of none more indispensable to success in life, is mere- 
ly incidental — not announced as one of the ends of scholastic 
arrangements — not thought of by the pupil, nor, it may be, 
by the teacher himself. As the result, however, of this in- 
cident or accident — of this spontaneous growth, we have in 



CHARACTER. IN COLLEGE. 101 

good students one of the most enduring, certain guarantees 
of future well-doing, an established habit of orderly, prompt, 
vigorous mental activity. I have dwelt upon this single ex- 
ample of the results of the scholastic life, not more hecause 
of its great practical importance, than as a striking illustra- 
tion of the general effect of the system of public education. 
Whether for good or for evil, four years in college are to any 
young man a transforming period. Diligent, earnest stu- 
dents, impelled by lofty incentives in their quest of mental 
power and resources, receive the new impress unconsciously 
in the form of effective habits and manly sentiments, which 
are at once the fruit, the expression, and the conservatories 
of intellectual and moral progress and attainment. Others, 
less active in their co-operation with the institutional move- 
ment, but still not deficient in yielding conformity to scholas- 
tic obligations, are less profoundly, though not less really and 
permanently, penetrated by the dominant molding influence, 
while we can not say in regard to the still more passive and 
involuntary subjects of such efficient agencies, provided only 
that they keep clear of a positive distaste for their position 
and occupation, that they will not derive considerable advant- 
ages, as they certainly will great and lasting changes, from 
the literary atmosphere and fellowship of so many scholars. 
The susceptibility of youth, stimulated by new, exciting cir- 
cumstances and associations — the intensity of institutional 
life, acting directly, and daily, and hourly upon the intellect, 
and the moral and social feelings, and for so long a period, 
must produce in all a most observable as well as an endu- 
ring modification of character. 

It should also he noticed that the college can not avoid 
this full impression of itself upon its company of plastic youth. 
If its mental or moral Tone is debased, and its organization 
vicious, they must breathe its tainted atmosphere, and can 
not escape its infection. They come hither to be transformed, 
and the worst institutions, no less than the hest, are compe- 



102 THE FORMATION OF 

tent to achieve the predestined metamorphosis. Indolence, 
relaxed discipline, superficial teaching, and more shallow 
learning, are mighty instruments in working out this inevi- 
tahle, irreversible revolution in the student's character and 
destiny. There are, no doubt, essential differences between 
the two classes of agencies to which we have referred, as 
well as in their results, but the choice lies always between 
the good and the bad agencies and results, and not between 
either of these and none at all. 

The fundamental statutes of a literary institution are its 
creed. Its principles are announced in its practical demands 
upon the student's industry and general conduct. Not to 
require habitual diligence and punctuality is 'practically to 
"inculcate the opposite vices, and, in many instances, really 
to make them parts of the student's character. Not to ex 
act attendance on morning and evening, and Sabbath wor- 
ship, is, in the working of a college upon the youthful mind, 
little better than the positive inculcation of the opposite and 
anti- Christian theory. The omission becomes, under the 
circumstances supposed, not only a negation, but a proscrip- 
tion of the omitted duty, and a virtual enforcement of the 
most hateful .impiety. This is not necessarily the case every 
where and always, but in the domestic and the academic 
community — every where where the young are to be taught 
and trained, it is true, eminently and without qualification. 
Here, the truth that is not inculcated and the virtue that is 
not required, make haste to become the falsehood that taints 
and the vice that stains' the character. The laws of a col- 
lege are, in this view, its declaration of faith. They are its 
ideal — its model, which seeks for a realization in the student's 
life. The best-ordered and best-conducted institution does, 
as a matter of fact and experience, often fail in securing the 
elevated aims contemplated in its theory, and the counteract- 
ing influences frequently prove an overmatch for the teach- 
er's vigilance and untiring efforts. The college, however, 



CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. 103 

can never, under the circumstances supposed, forfeit the hon- 
ors due to an uncompromising advocacy of the principles of 
truth and righteousness. Treachery to these would richly 
merit the reproaches of heaven and earth ; but the least suc- 
cessful attempts for their realization, made in an earnest, un- 
conquerable spirit, deserves, and will usually command, the 
approbation, not of good men only, but even of the vicious. 

The parent, with the aid of all the holy sentiments and 
powerful associations of home for his auxiliaries, is often 
baffled in his endeavors to plant the seeds of intelligence 
and virtue in his son. It is just because young men are free 
agents, and wield for themselves, in high independence of pa- 
rent and teacher, a controlling authority over the formation 
of their own character, that so many grievous, shameful dis- 
comfitures — so many heart-rending catastrophes darken the 
history of our institutions of learning. And yet, where will 
you find a place of safety — where a greater exemption from 
the acknowledged dangers that beset this most exposed pe- 
riod of human existence ? The time has come when, by ih°. 
unchangeable law of our being, and in the arrangements of 
God's providence, the inevitable transformation must have 
place. The youth, hungering and thirsting after molding 
influences, must now be filled. Each individual has his own 
capacity for taking on new forms and characteristics, and from 
some source or other the insatiate demand has, in these form- 
ing years, to be supplied. 

It is in such an exigency that the educational institute 
freely and lovingly proffers its protecting statutes and its sal- 
utary inculcations — all its paternal safeguards, and its more 
direct and plastic efficiencies — opens crystal fountains, and 
spreads out sumptuous viands most adapted to satisfy all 
mental and moral appetencies. If we must admit that this 
affluent provision for the intellectual and moral necessities of 
the young — this concentration of beneficent influences — often 
prove ineffectual in their operation, just such an admission 



104 THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER, ETC. 

is to be made in regard to the merciful provisions and ar- 
rangements of Heaven itself for the present and eternal well- 
being of our fallen race. God himself respects the freedom 
of the human agent, and submits to be baffled and thwarted 
in his efforts to save, rather than do violence to the funda- 
mental law which He has impressed upon our being. The 
efficient moral appliances ordained by the Great Father for 
the restoration of the fallen race even become pernicious and 
destructive — "a savor of death unto death" — to as many as 
refuse a voluntary co-operation with means of recovery proffer- 
ed to them by the divine goodness. Much more may we ex- 
pect the most strenuous human efforts to fail in their objects 
when, they corae into conflict with a fundamental law of hu- 
man nature. 



Baccalaureate EDiacoursss. 
I. 

INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE 

A DISCOURSE TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE WESLEYAN 
UNIVERSITY. 1844. 

Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded- — Titus, ii., G. 

The virtue which this text inculcates is not temperance in 
animal indulgences and enjoyments, but discretion. The 
young are to be admonished to form their plans of life with 
thoughtful deliberation, and to subject their conduct to such 
laws as the common sense and experience of the human race 
have developed and prescribed. Young men need such ad- 
vice. They are unavoidably exposed to misleading influences 
and to illusions. Hitherto they have had little or no part in 
affairs. Their business has been with preparation — with pro- 
lusion, and disciplinary exercises, and they often bring into 
the arena of real, earnest action and responsibility, arms and 
hearts strong and brave for the struggles before them, while 
they are mostly unfurnished with the maxims, and the habits 
which alone can insure them against discomfiture, and win 
for them the victor's crown. Youth is confident and san- 
guine, inexperience is rash — errors for which God provides 
an antidote in the lessons of history and religion, if the im- 
petuous activity of youthful life will have the grace to listen 
to His voice. 

It is worth while for young men to give heed to these les- 
sons, for it is to them alone they are really valuable. The 
old may learn them, must learn them, but usually too late 



106 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR 

for any high end beyond that of repentance. Wisdom is, in- 
deed, a graceful ornament for hoary heads, but its utility, its 
full power, its crowning glory, is only made manifest in its 
anion and co-operation with the generous impulses of youth 
and the strenuous labors of manhood. " Young men exhort 
to be sober-minded." Let them pause on the threshold of 
active life, and consider well its duties and demands, its lia- 
bilities, and its conditions of success. They owe it to society. 
Young men have a destiny to fulfill. Not one of them " liv- 
eth to himself." Education, virtue, civilization, the common 
weal, lean upon them. They are to be chief actors in all 
the great enterprises of their generation, and it would be a 
folly and a crime to rush thoughtlessly upon such a theatre. 
Let " young men be sober-minded," for they are to be the 
agents and co-workers with Divine Providence in all Hk 
gracious and benevolent operations, which have time and this 
world for their sphere of action. " I have written to you, 
young men, because ye are strong." Ye are God's chosen 
instruments for the promotion of His highest and most mer- 
ciful designs. " Be sober-minded." Rise up to a due appre- 
ciation of your high calling. " Ponder well the paths of your 
feet," for you are about to step on holy ground. 

It is obviously of the highest importance that young men 
should begin their career of active life aright. An inconsid- 
erable divergency at the outset must lead them more and 
more astray from the path of safety and success. Such an 
error, however inconsiderable in appearance, is, in its nature, 
both fundamental and permanent, and must tend directly 
and perpetually to fetter and oppress, and, at least partially, 
to neutralize the intellectual and moral energies. Educated 
young men have learned many valuable lessons in ethics, in 
philosophy, and in history, and it will be admitted to be the 
most egregious folly to neglect these all in practice. "Why 
study to acquire knowledge — why labor so assiduously — why 
make sacrifices in pursuit of attainments which are to be 



SUCCESS IN LIFE. 107 



coolly discarded and overlooked in the only conjuncture when 
they can be of any real use ? Science in ^>osse is worthless, 
or nearly so. Education, as knowledge, is thus lost to all 
valuable ends — as a mental discipline, it is wholly perverted. 

Let me, then, invite the attention of the young men before 
me to the exhortation of the text. Follow me, my dear 
friends, in a brief discussion of this subject, and in some ap- 
plications of it to your own condition and character. 

The misfortunes and miscarriages of life do not commonly 
arise from a deficiency in native talent or acquirements, or 
from the untowardness of circumstances. I do not hesitate 
to affirm that a liberally educated young man of ordinary 
capacity has, in this country at least, all the means neces- 
sary to insure usefulness, respectability, and happiness. So 
extensive and pressing is the demand for literary qualifica- 
tions — so many and broad are the fields open, outspread in 
every direction, and white for the harvest, that barely com- 
petent attainments, provided they are united with some de- 
gree of energy of character — that they are not marred by 
great vices, or neutralized by some special perverseness of 
intellect or temper, are morally certain.of finding full scope 
for activity, and an abundant reward. So true is this, that 
our young men are frequently drawn away into the arena of 
busy life before they have completed their collegiate course, 
and our graduates are often pushed into stations of high re- 
sponsibility and influence at a period much earlier than pru- 
dence, or than their own reasonable wishes, would approve. 
So great are the facilities, that dull, commonplace minds oft- 
en succeed very well by mere dint of industry and persever- 
ance, while young men of better gifts almost never fail ex- 
cept through their own fault. 

It must be admitted, however, in the face of these decla- 
rations, which are as obviously as they are historically true, 
that failures, many" grievous failures occur. Our educated 
young men, perhaps, commonly fall below their own stand- 



108 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOE. 

ards of excellence and success, and often below the reasona- 
ble expectations of their friends, as well as of the demands 
of the world. The admission is certainly mortifying, but it 
need inflict no discouragement on ingenuous minds. Dis- 
comfitures that proceed from causes at once obvious and vin- 
cible are useful as warnings, and as incitements to caution, 
and diligence, and strenuous exertion. Let young men be 
sober-minded. Let them thoughtfully ponder their ways, be 
mindful of their dangers and their duties, of their liabilities 
and their capabilities. Let them remember that success is 
an attribute neither of chance nor destiny, but the award of 
Divine Providence to discretion, to virtue, to labor. Educa- 
ted young men are commonly learned in the truths which, 
carried out into action, would guide them to success and 
honor, full of unheeded maxims that contain the essence of 
all practical wisdom. Let them but practice the lessons they 
have learned so well. Let them give earnest heed to the 
teachings of experience and history. Let Divine philosophy, 
so often studied as a task, now be wooed as a guide. Above 
all, let religion — hitherto unacknowledged and neglected, 
lauded or trampled, on, or, it may be, embraced, yet never 
half obeyed — now be welcomed as a chief light of the mind 
and a main element of character — as at once the pledge and 
the instrument of intellectual as well as moral excellence and 
greatness. 

Let young men be sober-minded. Let them give reverent 
heed to the teachings of experience and history. These con- 
stitute the source from which are derived most of the valu- 
able maxims by which wise men form their characters and 
conduct their affairs. No portion of that most important 
department of human wisdom, usually denominated common 
sense, was derived originally from either instinct or reason. 

That industry, and perseverance, and order are indispensa- 
ble conditions of success in the pursuits of life, is by no means 
an innate truth, nor were there any logical formulae or pro- 



SUCCESS IN LIFE. 109 

cesses by which it could have been demonstrated anterior to 
individual experience. The untaught savage, ignorant alike 
of the past and the future, as he struggles blindly but might- 
ily with his unpitying destiny, unconsciously develops the 
facts which, to his more fortunate successors, are to be the 
elements of progress and civilization. It is only in propor- 
tion as these results of individual effort are treasured up 
and reverenced as fundamental laws, that the human race 
advances in knowledge and happiness. The discoveries of 
each generation thus become the inheritance of all that fol- 
low, and each begins its career from the advanced position 
to which all the preceding had been able to bring up their 
improvements in the art of living well and wisely. Of this 
law of progress, it is material to my purpose to observe, ihat 
it is generally followed by communities, and only very sel- 
dom and imperfectly by individuals, and hertfee it has occur- 
red that, while many modern nations are incalculably in ad- 
vance of Greece and Rome in all the elements of grandeur, 
and power, and material enjoyments, man, as an individual, 
has, apart from the moral influences of the Gospel, made 
comparatively little improvement ; and were we called on 
for the best specimens of humanity, so far as intellectual and 
physical powers are concerned, we might be driven back to 
make our selection from the compatriots of Plato or Fabius. 
Nations obey the lessons of experience fully and promptly , 
individuals are too indolent to heed, or too proud to follow 
them, and hence are engaged evermore in reproducing the 
mistakes, the follies, the vices, and the miseries of their pred- 
ecessors. Each man begins his career of experimenting for 
himself, not where his progenitor left off, but where he com- 
menced. History is, for the most part, lost upon us. We will 
not be the wiser for the past. Every one must learn for him- 
self — must make his own mistakes — must learn wisdom from 
adversity — caution from imprudences — temperance from ex- 
cesses — industry from want or from avarice. The error is as 



110 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOE 

if the child should disregard all the cautions of his parent and 
his nurse, and taste for himself of every noxious, bitter fruit, 
and every poisonous plant — as if he would plunge into the 
flood, or the storm, or the fire, till, in the end, he should have 
learned some of the laws of Nature and of life, when he had 
become so marred and enfeebled that the knowledge would be 
nearly useless to him. 

So it is, little as they think of it, so it is with many — with 
most young men. They are habitually and proverbially un- 
mindful of the teachings of experience and age. They are 
prone to judge by appearances. They yield to the seductions 
of the present. The counsels of parental affection are lost 
upon deaf ears. The voice of the preacher and the teacher 
will not be heeded. The oracles of wisdom, which sages have 
reported as honored, are esteemed but as idle commonplaces ( 
of no worth or*adaptation. A smart repartee or a loud laugh 
shall often pass for a sufficient answer to the profoundest apo- 
thegm. There is often observed in young persons a perverse- 
ness or recklessness of folly that will not listen to counsel or 
reproof. They tvill not fear that idleness, bad company, dis- 
orderly habits, incessant profligacy, are real dangers, as the 
whole rational world pronounces them, and experience has 
uniformly shown them to be. Parents and friends interpose 
with remonstrances, and entreaties. All is in vain, and pass- 
es for so much croaking ; and the youth — full, it may be, of 
talent and high aspirations, and not devoid of many amiable 
attributes — presses gayly and boldly on in a career which 
every book he reads, and every saiie man he meets ten years 
older than himself, assure him must prove fatal to all his 
honorable purposes, and to all his chances of respectability or 
success. 

If young men would be sober-minded — if they would give 
heed to experience — to friends — to their own common sense, 
it were easy to guide them unharmed, through the tempta- 
tions and dangers that beset them. It is not ignorance— 



SUCCESS IN LIFE. Ill 

very often it is not depravity, nor vicious habitudes that lead 
them to ruin. With their eyes open to consequences — fully 
instructed in all the ways of duty and of safety — with the 
holy maxims of wisdom on their lips, they move onward in 
their folly with utter indifference and recklessness. Of all 
the cases of difficulty with which, in my professional duties, 
I have been called to deal, such as I have described are the 
most hopeless. It is usually found impossible to break the 
spell or awake the sleeper ; and not a few of the most amia- 
ble and promising young men, who have held to me the en- 
dearing relation of pupils, have gone to ruin, not because their 
principles were unsound, or their passions strong, or their in- 
tentions bad, but only because they would not consider — 
would not follow advice which they knew to be good and 
*felt to be kind — because, in the recklessness and excess of the 
unparalleled folly to which they fell victims, -they would not 
resolve to do right. 

I will advert here to an unsound and pernicious tlocti'ine, 
sanctioned but too often by good men and able writers, and 
adopted by many young men with an inconsiderate levity, 
which too frequently proves but the precursor of ruin. It is, 
that no knowledge of life and character is of any real value 
except that which is gained by our own experience. I will 
not stop to prove, for the simple announcement is demonstra- 
tion on this point, that this sentiment flatly contradicts the 
great first principle of moral education, as proclaimed by Di- 
vine Wisdom : " Train up a child in the way he should go. 
and when he is old he will not depart from it." It is no 
less at variance with all the teachings of right reason and 
common sense. Grant that the experience of our predeces- 
sors does not furnish safe maxims to guide us in the career 
of life, and there is, of necessity, an end to all progress. Man, 
at the end of a thousand years, will stand where he did a 
thousand years ago. Our ancestors have conferred nothing 
upon us — we shall bestow no boon upon our successors but 



112 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR 

the doubtful privilege of having a part on the theatre of life, 
on which every one is doomed, in his turn, to play the savage 
or the novice. I fear there is little hope of making these 
general reasonings effective for the admonition of those who 
most need it, yet it is plain enough that, if the young could 
be induced to yield a more willing homage to the wisdom of 
age and the maxims of experience, not only might they avoid 
the principal causes of the mortifications and disappointments 
of youth, but they would certainly insure earlier and am- 
pler success, and a vastly higher intellectual and moral char- 
acter. 

Now the fervor and vivacity of youth are often wearied and 
wasted in random, unguided efforts, more frequently in the 
wrong direction than in the right, and when, after some years 
of waywardness, disappointment and shame may have in- 
spired a better discretion, it is usually too late fully to re- 
trieve the error. The high impulses and buoyant hopes, so 
well adapted to insure eminent success and to triumph over 
great obstacles, are no more. They have been supplanted by 
caution, distrust, and, it maybe, discouragement. The motive 
powers' of the soul are no longer adequate to the greatest 
achievements, and tame mediocrity, or something worse, is 
henceforth the limit of all that is possible to a noble mind, 
formed by the hand- of God for the higher spheres of action 
and excellence. I lay this down as a law of our mental and 
moral nature, subject to neither more nor greater exceptions 
than other fundamental principles. Every youth, during the 
forming and most important period of his life, is shut up to 
this alternative : either he must be content to be guided by 
the experience and, counsels of others, and so gain the liberty 
and the power of directing his fresh, full, unwasted energies 
in a career of early, valuable improvement ; or, if he will 
listen to no counsels but his own, and will work out every 
problem for himself, then he must expect to miss the right 
way altogether, or else to reach it with courage subdued by 



SUCCESS IN LIFE. 113 

miscarriages, and his youthful vigor exhausted hy heating 
the air, and, withal, too late for the attainment of any distin- 
guished excellence. Could we but successfully inculcate upon 
the young this one lesson of humility — would they only fol- 
low the advice of judicious teachers, the chief difficulty of 
tuition would he removed, and the most fruitful source of re- 
grets and miscarriages would fail. Education might then 
claim, both in its progress and its results, something like the 
precision of a science, and educated young men would be bet- 
ter prepared for life at five-and-twenty than they now are # 
ten years later or ever. 

I have exposed a cardinal error, that common error of young 
men who are too proud or too giddy to take advice. This, 
perhaps, is the most usual cause of another offense against 
the sterling virtue inculcated in our text, to which I would 
now direct your thoughts. Young men do not sufficiently 
respect the laws of their own nature. I will illustrate my 
meaning by referring to the law of habit. Every action and 
every course of action has a two-fold character and import- 
ance. It is virtuous or vicious according to its motive, use- 
ful or pernicious according to its effects. Beyond all this, an 
►action, by frequent repetition, produces and leaves a perma- 
nent effect upon the mind, such as to modify and ultimately 
to control its future operations. This is habit — a power 
never sufficiently heeded in education by teacher or pupil. 
Both, however, are accustomed to recognize this superinduced 
condition of the mind, in reference to its influence on proper- 
ly intellectual operations, and we have rules for the improve- 
ment of the memory, of the attention, of the reasoning facul- 
ties. The law of habit has a yet more important, though 
less obvious influence over the moral sentiments, and that in 
a way to promote or hinder very materially the chief ends 
of intellectual culture. The educated man can only attain 
these ends by exercising influence over other minds. A good 
reputation is one indispensable condition of success in efforts. 



114 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR 

A good character, which implies upright principles and pure 
sentiments, is no less requisite. These are the sources from 
which all high thoughts and all mighty impulses proceed. 
A conscience void of offense toward God and man — a heart 
full of generous sympathies and lofty aspirations, is the great 
store-house of persuasion and eloquence. In order to any val- 
uable success in the inculcation of our sentiments on others, 
we must first reverence them as pure and lofty ourselves. 
There must be in the inmost soul an idolatry for the true 
and the right, and no practical skill in logic — no creative 
imagination, can offer a substitute there. Now immorality 
and vice, of every kind and degree, not only impair, but, in 
the end, extinguish this inward spiritual power. The vices 
in which a young man indulges impart their hue and nature 
to his soul. These essential attributes become a part of his 
moral constitution. Low gratifications besot the mind. Vul- 
gar associations degrade it. The taste soon becomes as coarse 
and vile as the books and the people with whom we most 
commune. 

I am not to speak here of the guilt and the dishonor that 
belong to such offenses, but of their more permanent effects. 
A stain is contracted by the soul — a disability is incurred — 
a noble power is lost, to be recovered and enjoyed no more. 
The sinner may repent, and God may pardon the transgres- 
sion, but the mind is maimed, and shall wear its scars through 
all time. There is no vis medicatrix of potency to heal this 
immortal wound. O ! if I could make appreciable and pal- 
pable the thoughts I am laboring to evolve — if I could trans- 
fer to the minds of my beloved hearers the deep convictions 
which much observation and experience have implanted 
deeply in my own, I should esteem myself most fortunate. 
Here, I am sure, is one of the most common hinderances tc 
eminent success in the career of young men. One may oft- 
en see a student of hopeful intellect, and good dispositions, 
and aspiring ambition, diligent enough in the work of inteb 



SUCCESS IN LIFE. 115 

lectual improvement, and, at the same time, addicted to as- 
sociations and pleasures that must irretrievably debase and 
enfeeble all the energies and capabilities of his nature. It 
is a painful and a humiliating spectacle. We can not affirm 
that the labor of such a one is all lost, but much of it is neu- 
tralized. Obstacles to success are needlessly multiplied. 
Fine powers are tasked to little purpose so long as suicidal 
indifference to the moral forces of our nature is indulged in. 
Vulgar companionship, coarse jests, ribald books and songs, 
sensuality and vice, will always prove an overmatch for 
merely intellectual safeguards. The hours of relaxation 
are no longer the refreshment, but the poison of the weary ' 
mind. 

I would affectionately warn the aspiring youth against 
evils yet more latent, and I might, perhaps, say yet more 
dangerous. The soul derives its character and its tendencies 
still more from its cherished thoughts and feelings than from 
all external influences. That will become a great mind which 
is in the habit of revolving great thoughts ; and the young 
man who seeks to make the most of himself must be select 
in the musings of his solitary hours no less than in his asso- 
ciates and his books. Those sentiments which find welcome 
daring these seasons of repose, not only mark, but make the 
real character of the mind. He who delights to commune 
with low, impure thoughts in his chamber, is, or soon will 
be, thoroughly debased ; nor can all liberal studies and able 
teaching supply an antidote for the malignant poison that 
works and spreads within. He, on the contrary, who nourish- 
es in secret an ardent love of truth, of justice, of mercy, and of 
purity — whose heart warms with the thought of doing good 
or of suffering in a good cause — whose indignation burns at 
the suggestion of a base action, or of a selfish, dishonorable 
motive — who would blush to plot, or perpetrate, or counte- 
nance, under the hope or promise of concealment, a deed which 
he would be unwilling to meet before the eyes of all men 



116 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR 

and of God — such a young man is treasuring up in his noble 
bosom the resources of a moral and intellectual power, which, 
in some great day of crisis or duty, will come forth in the forms 
of an overbearing eloquence or influence, under which perse- 
cuted innocence, or the cause of truth or of patriotism, will 
delight to seek shelter. 

I purposely avoid, on this occasion, the usual arguments in 
favor of religion as the way of salvation. I confine myself 
to such considerations as appeal especially to young men who 
aspire to intellectual eminence and usefulness. Them I ex- 
hort to be sober-minded, and to consider the Gospel in its 
adaptations to their special wants. I suppose that they ful- 
ly acknowledge its claims as a Divine revelation. If they 
do this, they also virtually and implicitly acknowledge it as 
a system, so far as it gees, of unerring philosophy. As God, 
our Maker, is its author, it must correspond perfectly to that 
other work of His, the human mind. This needs no proof; 
for to all who admit that both human nature and religion 
are from God, the mutual adaptations of the two systems to 
each other must needs assumo the authority of self-evident 
truths. It is in this character that I commend the Gospel to 
young men. Its maxims for the guidance of the conduct, and 
the formation of the principles and the culture of the heart, 
are, in the nature of the case, infallibly correct. Beyond all 
doubt they must prove the best, and whoever follows them 
implicitly must reach the best results. How valuable such 
a guide is likely to prove to young men in the forming period, 
before they have the benefit of experience, and when they 
are yet but slightly acquainted with the laws of their own 
nature, will be the more obvious if we recall the remarks 
made on these two points in the former part of this discourse. 
The pride and the rashness of young men often make advice 
unpalatable or useless ; but if they will take God's word for 
their counselor, no such objections can be felt. The Divine 
teacher can not provoke jealousy or envy, and the proudest 



SUCCESS IN LIFE. 117 

spirit does honor to its own nature when it listens to the 
Almighty. 

Again ; the precepts of religion, since God is their author, 
must necessarily correspond with the results of right reason 
and experience, since these are so many conclusions reached 
in following the laws which God has ordained. In adopting 
religion for his guide, a young man anticipates the light of 
experience. In fulfilling the laws of Christianity, he is fol- 
lowing out the laws of his own intellectual nature, and this 
without liability to mistake. For high practical purposes he 
has, even from his boyhood, the wisdom of gray hairs, and is 
thus placed in precisely the most favorable position for mak- 
ing the highest attainments in mental and moral excellence. 
He brings to the work of self-culture all possible advantages, 
and an exemption from all avoidable impediments. He has 
the vivacity, the ardor, the energy, and the courage of youth, 
and, withal, its ready susceptibilities of intellect and heart, 
and, at the same time, he prosecutes his efforts in the clear 
light of a faultless Divine philosophy, which never gives ut- 
terance to a doubtful precept, nor leads its votaries to make 
one false step. 

The soundness of this theory may be shown by reference 
to facts. I have already pointed out the intimate connection 
between some of the better and higher objects of education 
and the moral sentiments, and have shown that there can be 
no eminent powers of persuasion, or eloquence, or influence 
in the absence of the higher virtues. If my hearers have fol- 
lowed me in these reasonings, many of them have probably 
felt that they suggested, without solving, a very difficult prob- 
lem in education. They sufficiently developed the import- 
ance of certain attributes without pointing out the means of 
their attainment. I have now reached the point for making 
that disclosure. What did I aver to be the true sources of 
all high eloquence and influence ? A heart full of pure, lofty 
sentiments — a veneration for the pure, the merciful, the up- 



118 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR 

right — a tender sympathy with man and with goodness. 
Something may doubtless be done toward the attainment of 
these essential conditions of success by a watchful and pains- 
taking mental culture, but religion is their only sure and 
proper source. One of its precepts fulfilled in the heart and 
the life will do more to make an educated man truly eloquent 
than all the dogmas of Longinus or Cicero. " Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself," is the fundamental principle 
and the deep spring of all the melting sympathies of high el- 
oquence. The soul, which religion has purified from its gross 
alloy of selfishness, and sensuality, and sin, is just then pre- 
pared to enter into harmonies with whatever is ennobling to 
our nature. Spiritual culture induces that tender, simple, 
fervent habit of mind that is ever ready to feel and to suffer 
— to rejoice at the bidding of a good cause, and to impart to 
sound logic and graceful elocution that baptism of fire, with- 
out which there can not be eloquence, or persuasion, or 
mighty influence. I will not affirm that there are not gifted 
natures which may attain to some honorable distinction in 
this great department of usefulness without piety ; but I fear 
no contradiction from observing, philosophical men, when I 
affirm that religion is the best resource for eloquence. I will 
go farther, and say that it is hardly possible for a skeptic or 
an infidel to be a true orator. He has no part in the might- 
iest sympathies that pervade the world of man. He is iso- 
lated in the midst of his species. He may not touch the 
holy chord that vibrates through all hearts. 

We may announce it, then, as a philosophical truth, that 
religion is directly and greatly promotive of high intellectual 
excellence. It nurtures those virtues and sensibilities which 
are strictly indispensable to the higher efforts of a cultivated 
nind. It relieves the soul of all degrading passions, appe- 
tites, and tendencies, and calls it out to an habitual contem- 
plation of the loftiest themes, and even inspires the best and 
most sustaining hopes. Finally, it supplies motives and prom- 



SUCCESS IN LIFE. 119 



ises rewards for all right action of sufficient strength and im- 
portance to awaken our greatest energies and guard us against 
all despondency. In exact proportion as the religious char- 
acter is developed in a young man are his intellectual capa- 
bilities augmented, so that he who loves God with all the 
heart, and his neighbor as himself, has just attained a posi- 
tion where, ceteris paribus, he is best qualified for the higher 
walks of philosophy, eloquence, and poetry. 

Believing my argument to be conclusive, and trusting to 
the upright understanding of the ingenuous audience before 
me, I venture to put this question, not to their consciences, 
but to their common sense. Is it not the extreme of folly to 
reject from your course of intellectual training influences so 
benignant and so powerful ? Here is a teacher which prof- 
fers to the inexperienced youth all the light of experience and 
philosophy, at a season when he can have it from no other 
source, and when it will be most useful to him. What mind 
that is not insane will choose to grope in darkness ? Here 
is a discipline that strengthens, and elevates, and enriches 
the soul, and arms it for all high enterprise. What wise man 
will reject its pro fie red aid ? And here I must remark upon 
the efficiency of its purifying, disciplinary processes. No res- 
olutions are so often broken — no aspirations so often prove to 
be vain as those by which a young man essays to cleanse him- 
self. Religion offers for his cleansing more potent agencies. 
Its truths are mighty, its supports manifold, its rewards are 
infinite ; but I now refer to no indirect influences. I refdfc to 
the great doctrine of spiritual influences. The Holy Ghost 
is given, to those who will heed His voice, to be a light and 
a purifier. This is the great fact in experimental religion. 
This is the resource offered to young men who are struggling 
witn untoward dispositions and low tendencies. Here is Di- 
vine help. Here is a provision through wh"<jh they may re- 
ceive God's immediate co-operation. Will you reject such 
an auxiliary, and prefer to struggle single-handed with ene- 



120 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR 



mies which, have been so often, found an overmatch for you ? 
I beseech you, young men, to be sober-minded. Act with 
some tolerable discretion ; give to high interests some meas- 
ure of that consideration which you habitually bestow upon 
the lowest. 

So far I have spoken of the Gospel as an agent and aux- 
iliary in intellectual culture, and on the views already pre- 
sented I mean chiefly to rest the subject. The special ob- 
ject and the special audience to which my discourse seeks 
to adapt itself, will justify this course in the sight of all 
thoughtful hearers. Yet I must not part with an assembly, 
many of whom I shall never address again, without some 
words of a more strictly religious application. I must re- 
mind these young men, not of the incidental and more 
worldly uses of religion, but that it is God's only way of sav- 
ing sinners — that men who do not become Christians go to 
hell. And here I can not but feel that I touch upon what 
is practically the weakest point in my argument. How oft- 
en and how vainly have I besought those who hear me to-day 
"to be sober-minded" — to show themselves, at least, men of 
common sense — to give to their souls the benefit of those 
prudential maxims which it is held shameful in a man not 
to employ about all the most trivial and transient interests 
of life. Our argument here, though practically weak, is so 
only because of its overwhelming, irresistible power. The 
minds of men become habituated to bow instinctively to it — 
to concede all that religion claims at the first mention of the 
fcubject, and then to act, and to be, precisely as they would 
if the Gospel were demonstrably false. The human mind 
is content to dwell in the midst of these grievous inconsisten- 
cies. It will not reason — it will not act in regard to religion 
as about every-day affairs. In other things a man shall bf 
carried by the stronger argument. He can not stop at the 
attainment of a conviction. He is ashamed, and he ought 
to be ashamed, not to act in obedience to it. He might as 



SUCCESS IN LIFE. 121 

: a: 

well be a brute or a log as such a man. It is only in religion 
that we see men of mind in equilibrio under the pressure of 
a thousand demonstrations — unmoved by motives of infinite 
strength. We are used to such spectacles ; our eyes have 
no longer any tears for them. We look for nothing better 
than to see respectable, sensible men offend against all the 
laws of their own nature, so they have a chance to offend 
against God in it. ! it is this perverseness — this fatuity 
— this voluntary stultifying of good minds, that baffles the 
preacher, and drives him to his wit's end. What can we do, 
what can we say more, surrounded by an immortal com- 
pany of moral agents, who are ready to grant all that we 
claim for God's truth, and yet are wholly unmoved — oppos- 
ing very stoically to that word which is quick and powerful, 
sharper than a two-edged sword, the resistance of a vis in- 
ertia, which earth and heaven lack moral forces to over- 
come. 

Our Christian argument is too strong. I think, if we could 
only make out a tolerable case of it — if we could only show 
that it were barely possible, or, perhaps, slightly probable, 
that men might, by incessantly putting forth their highest 
energies, win such a moral elevation, and such a glorious in- 
heritance as the Gospel proposes with so much assurance, it 
would seem a good adventure for men to embark in ; and 
many who think it scorn to go forth on a warfare which 
leads to certain victory, would yet fight, on their own charges, 
manfully enough. I beg of you all to say if you could dare 
to give up religion without more thought, if the evidence iu 
its favor were a hundred times less than it is ? Would you 
not think it worth while to work out an experiment by which 
nothing could be lost, and there was at least one chance in a 
hundred of gaining infinite good ? I doubt if there are not 
many now asleep under the weight of convictions which they 
dare to contemn, though not to deny, who, under the condi- 
tions supposed, would follow out the forlorn adventure with 

F 



122 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR 

all the resources which heaven and their own nature might 
supply for the effort. 

I exhort, I beg young men to be sober-minded. This tri- 
fling with God and the soul does positively border on stark 
madness. To make the infinite importance, and manifold 
proofs, and felt convictions of religion to be so many reasons 
for neglecting it, is doing barbarian violence to all that is 
rational and right in our natures. Come, let us reason to- 
gether — let us run over the trite arguments for once more 
together. In religion, the best arguments are the most trite, 
the most fearful considerations the most commonplace. 

I ask, do you mean to go through life, and so take hell for 
your portion, if it turns out there is wrath for the impeni- 
tent? I suppose not; you intend no such folly — no such 
crime against God and your souls. Observe, then, your true 
position and attitude,. for I pronounce them unworthy of a ra- 
tional being. You are confessedly convinced of the reality, 
and of the infinite value of experimental Christianity, and 
you act as if you were convinced of precisely the opposite 
proposition ! Your conscience feels the moral obligation of 
piety toward G-od, and you will not obey it. This is, then, 
the sinner's attitude. He lives in habitual conflict with his 
understanding and his conscience, with his common sense 
and his moral sense ! I am unable to conceive of any prop- 
osition more justly startling to a thinking, well-ordered mind 
than this. So much for principles. 

Now for the reasons on which this great offense is per- 
petrated ; for they who do not reject religion, postpone for 
cause. 

Distaste for religion is a chief cause. The young feel a 
repugnance for the pursuits and the spirit of the Gospel. 
This exists as a fact, and must be grappled with at some 
time, and it is only tolerable to delay the struggle if there is 
hope of less resistance. Is there such a hope ? Every body 
knows, and educated young men have learned it from their 



SUCCESS IN LIFE. "123 

accredited books'on mental philosophy, that just the opposite 
is true. This distaste grows strong by time — ungovernable 
by indulgence — invincible by habit. 

Young men are deterred by indifference and insensibility, 
as well as by distaste. Will these diminish by time ? Con- 
fessedly the moral sensibilities are diminished by all disobe- 
dience and neglect. The heart grows hard and selfish by 
contact with the world. This is a law of man's nature. 

Do obstacles diminish by time ? The love of the world — 
the cares of life — the anxieties of business — do they grow 
weaker or fewer as we advance ? 

Do you wait for higher moral forces from within, or ex- 
traneous ? I have shown that conscience grows feeble and 
callous by sin. God's Spirit is the other resource. By what 
law does it operate more powerfully for resistance ? With 
growing lights in proportion as sin darkens the soul ? Will 
the Divine Free Agent be conciliated by opposition — by re- 
bellious contempt ? We are not uninstructed on these points. 
God is not without a witness even in our own experience. 
We well know that we are engaged in a progress, in which 
the disease grows worse, the heart hard, while the meliora- 
ting influence is perpetually impaired — the resistance in- 
creases while the moral force diminishes — the sinner grows 
harder to save while the Spirit is grieved and ready to depart. 

This train of remark is at least good for one practical in- 
ference for those who are about to enter the great world of 
active life. It is an era — a transition. Let them, at least, 
beware of taking this great step without God. Fear to en- 
counter new temptations — to incur new responsibilities with- 
out heavenly guidance. I beg of you, settle your new course 
on high principles. In choosing what you shall do, ask one 
question only : " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" Deal 
honestly with your souls and your Savior. As you love your- 
selves, and care for heaven, let the decision of this great ques- 
tion be greatly honest. Do not move without God. Shun 



124 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES, ETC. 

no responsibilities, no sacrifices, if He impose them. Dream 
of no success, no honors, no enjoyments, without His sanction. 
Run lawfully, or, if you win, you will not he crowned. Take 
with you into life the great principles of the Gospel. Abide 
by them. They are strong, and will uphold the weakest. 
They are enduring, and will last to the end. Lean upon, 
them. Build upon them. Trust them. Trust them with 
all the heart and all the soul, and then be sure the "gates of 
hell" can not prevail against you. 



RESOURCES AND DUTIES, ETC. 125 



II. 

RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 

A DISCOURSE TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE WESLEYAN 
UNIVERSITY. 1845. 

Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, 
to fulfill the lusts thereof. — Romans, xiii., 14. • 

This text is highly figurative, hut its intention and import 
are very obvious. It is an exhortation to he evangelically 
and thoroughly religious. The first eleven chapters of the 
Epistle to the Romans are devoted to the exposition and in- 
culcation of Christian doctrines. The twelfth and thirteenth 
are hortatory and preceptive. They announce our practical 
duties, and warn of dangers to he shunned. They declare, 
with authority and without any reserve at all, that we are 
held, under the Gospel dispensation, to the highest style of 
virtue, both in the motive and in the performance. So far 
as concerns the principle of our movements in the new life, 
'love is the fulfilling of the law," while in point of fact and 
actual manifestation, believers are called upon to "present 
their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, 
which is their reasonable service," to "prove what is that 
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." Our text 
announces the true method of attaining these vital Christian 
objects in reference both to the motive and the manifestation : 
" Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision 
for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." 

There is a numerous and very interesting class of persons, 
entitled to our respect by their intelligence and moral worth, 
and appealing strongly to our sympathies by the false and 



126 RESOURCES AND'DUTIES OF 

highly critical position which they occupy. They are un- 
douhting believers in -the Christian religion, and warm, 
avowed admirers of its sublime theology, pure ethics, and di- 
vine philanthropy. Yet they are not Christians. They are 
destitute not only of the hopes, but also of the helps of the 
Gospel. Something of its morals they contrive to exemplify. 
Some chill, half-extinguished rays from the Sun of righteous- 
ness are allowed to blend with their philosophy, and give 
coloring to their maxims of life ; but as a religious system, 
claiming the profoundest homage and the most imreserved 
obedience, they only contemplate it from afar, and sedu- 
lously shun all personal contact and near communion with 
it. As a religious system, that is to say, as to all the ends 
for which God has made this great revelation to the, world, 
the Gospel is to these men but a nullity, and, for all practi- 
cal results, all one as a lie. The moral attitude of these be- 
lievers, who yet refuse to be Christians, is painfully anoma- 
lous as well as grossly at variance with all right reason a.nd 
the manifest fitness of things, just in proportion as their con- 
victions are clear and their faith satisfactory. Speculate 
upon it as a mere phenomenon apart from all evil conse- 
quences — what a spectacle of absurd folly and self-degrada- 
tion is it for a rational being to live in habitual contempt of 
the sure teachings of his own reason and experience, or for 
a moral being to live in perpetual conflict with his con- 
science ? What should we think of a man of mature age and 
unimpaired vision, who should deliberately walk into a flood 
or into a conflagration ? What should we think of a com- 
munity skilled in the laws and liabilities .of our earthly being, 
which should contemn all the promises of seed-time and har- 
vest, and blindly and bravely advance to meet the inevitable 
famine ? What, but that chance or Heaven had smitten them 
with madness, the dire precursor of impending destruction ! 
Yet the infatuation we are now seeking to expose is greater 
and worse than this, in the same degree that eternal things 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 127 



are more important than temporal. What right has a man — 
I do not speak of him now as a creature of God, and respon- 
sible at his tribunal, but as a man accountable to himself, 
and bound to maintain some degree of self-respect, as well 
as to make some provision for his own welfare, present and 
prospective — what right has he to trifle with his own des- 
tiny, and to perpetrate such enormities as the shutting of his 
ears and his eyes against the words and the manifestations 
of the Divine mercy toward him ? He is a being with strong 
passions, which need to be chastened and controlled — of pow- 
erful tendencies downward as well as upward, Which call for 
checks — of immortal aspirations, which struggle for then- 
sphere and their proper satisfactions. These unfelt, undying 
wants, for which the Gospel alone has made adequate pro- 
vision, are so many voices rising up out of the bosom of our 
human nature, to rebuke and shame the believing impeni- 
tent out of his stupendous folly and more stupendous guilt. 

It is to be remembered that the Gospel is a voluntary sys- 
tem, under which no one becomes virtuous or pious without 
seeking to become so. It is under this condition that it ap- 
peals to our moral susceptibilities ; and not to yield obedience 
to the call is both to leave this part of our nature without 
development and framing, and to inflict upon it positive vio- 
lence. Religion, too, has its times and seasons. The dews 
of its grace are specially adapted to tender plants and fresh- 
opening flowers, and are less congenial and less effectual 
when the growth is more advanced, and the root has struck 
deeper into the hard, arid soil of this world. Religion has 
its special lessons for youth, which can not be learned, or, if 
learned, are no longer of much practical importance in ma- 
turer life. It seeks to lay its molding hand upon young, un- 
sophisticated minds, that it may bring out fine specimens of 
redeemed humanity for God's glory and for heavenly bliss. 
It does not, and it can not, change the leopard's spots. Rep- 
etition and reiteration have given to these simple statements 



* 

128 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

the character and authority of proverbs, and, I am sorry to 
say, the infirmity of trite maxims ; yet are they the sugges- 
tions of the highest philosophy and the most venerable ex- 
perience, and they are so many arguments in favor not only t 
of becoming pious, but of doing so at the right time. 

Religion, to be genuine and effective, must be ostensible 
and avowed. Let no one hope to work out his salvation, or 
to secure any, even the smallest of the spiritual advantages 
which the Gospel offers, by stealth. God, and our own mor- 
al nature, call for open, manly confession, and both will as- 
suredly disown and denounce all pretensions to piety which 
shun exposure to the broad light of the day. Nothing can 
be effectually done in this work till the sincere aspirant after 
Christian excellence fairly assumes his position, and becomes, 
as he is intended to be, " a spectacle to men and to angels" 
— " a city set on a hill, that can not be hid." "We not only 
have lessons to learn for our own improvement, but lessons 
to exemplify for the improvement of others and for the Sav- 
ior's honor. They only who run lawfully win the prize, and 
none others are likely to receive the precious aids indis- 
pensable to success. This we might expect from all we 
know of ourselves or of God's attributes, and of this we are 
notified in His word. Till a man assumes an avowed and 
recognized Christian position, he has no full scope for the ex- 
ercise of his own proper resources,, and no adequate occasions 
for calling up his powers. The state of indecision and di- 
vided aspirations which precedes the final and formal decision 
of this great question, is little better than a paralysis of the 
soul. There is seldom any distinct vision, and never any 
earnest, well-directed purpose or action, until this moral cri- 
sis is passed. But with the assumption of his true Chris- 
tian position, at the moment of " putting on the Lord Jesus 
Christ" — not on religious, supernatural grounds alone, but on 
philosophical also — the man receives an investiture of high 
powers and immunities. It is an important point gained to 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 129 

have it known to which party we belong. The sight of the 
banner that floats over our heads will not fail of clearing 
away many annoyances and many enemies, and of bringing 
to our aid troops of powerful auxiliaries. The courage of the 
soldier rises with the putting on of his uniform, and still more 
at sight of the marshaled hosts that throng the outspread 
field. 

. The responsibilities of a Christian profession, so often feared 
and shunned as intolerable burdens, under the pressure of 
which we are likely to make a disgraceful fall, ought rather 
to be invited as safeguards and helps in the working out of 
our salvation. We are likely to walk circumspectly as in 
the day, when conscious that the expectant eyes of friends as 
well as foes are upon us. The pious iEneas had a double 
motive for flying from the burning city when he bore his 
aged father upon his shoulders, and led his infant son by the 
hand. 

The pursuits, too, in which religion employs us, have a di- 
rect and powerful tendency to expand and invigorate the vir- 
tues to which they give exercise. We begin feebly and faint- 
ly — it may be almost reluctantly. With infinite difficulty, 
we drag ourselves away from the world, but more encourage- 
ments and fresh resources rise up in our path, and we speed- 
ily find that Christ has counter and stronger attractions. His 
grace, ever the sole dependence of the humble Christian, ope- 
rates at first but feebly ; beseeching, wooing, drawing us to 
be reconciled to God. It comes, however, to exert an influ- 
ence more and more decided. It animates, it encourages, it 
impels, it constrains us. We are borne onward by it as on 
the bosom of a great deep. Its prevalence becomes at length 
a domination, and the willing captive, bound, but unconscious 
of his chains, loses, in the deep feelings of the devotion of his 
heart, all sense of his moral agency, which gives way to a 
law of love — to a sort of predestination by the affections. 
Religion is no longer a drudgery, but a delight ; and he who 

F 2 



130 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

could at first do nothing as it ought to be done, is enabled to 
do all things through Christ. 

At the same time that the resources of him who has fairly 
" put on the Lord Jesus Christ" are thus constantly and rap- 
idly augmenting, the positive obstacles in the way of success 
gradually but surely diminish both in number and magnitude. 
In the first place, the evil passions and the devil can find lit- 
tle for one to do who is fully employed by the Savior. Th$a 
bad habits, a great hinderance at first, grow weaker by dis- 
use and neglect. Better tastes, too, are cultivated ; so that 
what were seductive pleasures, and so powerful temptations 
once, lose their character and become an offense. Walking 
by faith, the Christian appreciates more and more completely 
the excellence of the heavenly objects with which he is thus 
made familiar, and so acquires a standard of comparison 
which he can not but be ever applying to the worldly objects 
and enjoyments that invite his regards. Such a process can 
not fail to wean him from perishable good, and so leave him 
more free from every weight. 

While this Christian process strengthens perpetually the 
motives and the aids to piety, and abates the force of oppo- 
sition, it has a yet stronger tendency to improve the quality 
of our virtues. Nothing is more likely to retard and discour- 
age a generous mind, intent on the attainment of the high- 
est excellence, than a perpetual consciousness, or even sus- 
picion, that its best performances are marred by the admix- 
ture of some base alloy ; that some low, selfish motive may 
have been active, though unperceived, in the production of 
its most shining deeds. We may acquire humility or modesty 
from worldly disappointments and mortifications, but some 
measure of misanthropy and discontent is likely to be de- 
rived from the same lessons. It is not always easy to prac- 
tice beneficence and charity — to exert the highest public, or 
social, or private virtues, without having, whether we will 
or not, some reference to the returns which we are likely to 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 131 

receive in. the form of gratitude, or reputation, or public con- 
fidence, or posthumous fame. This selfishness, to whatever 
extent it mingles with our motives, not only produces a sense 
of self-degradation, but it is, in fact, degrading to our per- 
formances and character ; and so largely does this debasing 
alloy enter into our spirit and conduct, and so utterly impos- 
sible is it to exclude it altogether, without some more potent 
exorcism than mere human virtue can summon to its assist- 
ance, that most men, after some vain struggles against its oc- 
cult, malignant influence, yield to its dominion, and become sa- 
tisfied with doing their duty, without much concern about the 
motive. Under such circumstances, it is but too obvious that 
virtue has nothing left besides its form and its name. It has 
no longer any power to purify, etherealize, and exalt our na- 
ture. It is a mere earthly thing, a matter of business, a 
balancing of interests and conveniences, a skillful and com- 
prehensive solution of the question, How can we take the 
best care of ourselves ? I am quite sure that many will find, 
in their own consciousness and recollections, manifold illus- 
trations of the evil I have exposed. Now he who has " put 
on the Lord Jesus Christ," has found a perfect antidote for 
this evil. He has become a disciple, that he may be saved ; 
and he devotes his entire life to Christ, who was crucified 
for him, as a matter of gratitude and pious obligation. " Love 
is the perfecting of the law," and this is a motive from which 
self is wholly excluded. We work, we suffer, we live for an- 
other, even for Him who died for us and rose again. When we 
have fully " put on Christ," then is love made perfect, and all 
fear and all selfishness are fully " cast out." Disenthralled 
from all low, personal ends, and seeking only how we may 
please Christ, we enter upon a high, holy career of virtue, 
which can never know the taint of worldly maxims — which 
finds its model, its resources, and its ends in Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Gratitude, love, loyalty, these are the motives by 
which all heaven is swayed. They impel the angels onward 



132 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

in their career, and yet more the " spirits of just men made 
perfect." Indeed, heavenly pursuits, and enjoyments, and 
virtues, are no other than those into which the good man is 
introduced when he " puts on Christ," — the remote and invis- 
ible parts of the orbit in which he has already begun to move. 
As the Christian motive is the only one which can be 
trusted for purity, so it is the only one that can be relied on 
for efficiency. ' : Love is stronger than death." A man will 
often do for the love of his friend or his family what he 
could not do on any lower impulse. But if affection for kin- 
dred, according to the flesh, is able to minister strong im- 
pulses to the spirit, the love of Christ "constrains us." It 
imparts an energy something more than human, and quali- 
fies for achievements only less than divine. A man's per- 
formances are likely to bear some proportion to the strength 
of the motives on which he acts. Now the great Christian 
motive, love to Christ, partakes of the superhuman and the 
godlike. It has the additional advantage of stability. It 
can not be impaired by time, or change, or circumstance, but 
attains dominion over the soul, potent in exact proportion to 
our progress in piety. The racer moves more swiftly as he 
approaches the goal. A body tending to the earth gains speed 
in its descent. So the Christian is borne on with an ever ac- 
cumulating momentum as he draws nearer to perfection in 
faith and love. When we add that Christ has provided 
divine assistance for all exigencies to which our human re- 
sources are unequal ; that he gives the Holy Spirit to help 
our infirmities — to assure our hopes, illuminate our minds, 
and purify our hearts — I am unable to perceive what is yet 
wanting to a most admirable and all-sufficient apparatus of 
motives and means for the attainment of the highest moral 
excellence, and to the most glorious consummation of all that 
our fallen, but redeemed nature can aspire to. 

I have already intimated — indeed, the text directly af 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 133 

firms, and this is its burden — that these great facilities for 
the prosecution of our moral improvement are suspended on 
the one condition of a sincere and hearty adoption of the Gos- 
pel. We are "to put on the Lord Jesus Christ." He must 
become to us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, 
and redemption — must be teacher, and priest, and only po- 
tentate. We must wear his livery, must go our warfare at 
his charges and under his banner. Our dignity, our defense, 
and our exceeding great reward must be sought and found 
in Him. But we are not only called upon to make this entire 
dedication to Christ ; we are also cautioned against all res- 
ervations : " Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the 
lusts thereof." Faith in Christ, and a resort to the Gospel 
for pardon, and purity, and eternal life, presuppose an uncon- 
ditional submission to its terms. Not one successful step can 
be taken in religion previously to the settlement of this grand 
preliminary. The mind may not be able at the outset to 
take in all the particulars involved in this great act of sub- 
mission, but it can and does embrace them implicitly ; and 
it is of the very essence of all right faith to confide in Christ 
to the uttermost, and to consent to follow him whithersoever 
he goeth, giving to the winds all anxiety about the special 
paths in which we may be called to proceed in our onward 
march to heaven. Christ's dignity and sovereignty are con- 
cerned in imposing such conditions as he pleases, and in re- 
ceiving no terms at the hand of the sinner ; and he will un- 
questionably use his disciples in just such services, and im- 
pose upon them just such burdens as he sees best, giving no 
pledges in advance but the assurance that his grace shall 
be sufficient for them. I know well that a multitude, even 
of professing Christians, begin and prosecute what is called 
a religious course on a very different plan. They give law 
to religion. They retain as many indulgences, and concede 
as many sacrifices, as may fall in with their tastes. They 
make provision for pride, and ambition, and sensuality, and 



134 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OP 

self-will, and "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" only in so far 
as they think he may set off their own purple and fine linen 
to the best advantage. But my business to-day is with the 
sincere, who wish to be made holy and to be saved by Christ, 
and who really desire to know the conditions of success. I 
take it upon me to warn all such to beware of admitting 
any worldly or selfish motive or consideration ivhatever 
into the settlement of this great question between God and 
their souls. I take it upon me to proclaim that all such tam- 
pering in the business of religion will certainly prove fatal 
to any well-founded hopes of success in the Christian career. 
Whoever stops to inquire whether it may cost him sacri- 
fices to be a Christian, with any intention to hesitate if it 
does, has admitted a consideration utterly incompatible with 
his becoming a Christian at all. "Whoever chooses his creed 
or his church with any, the slightest, reference to the honor, 
or the ease, or the emolument it may give or withhold, does, 
by such an admission, utterly vitiate all his claim to have 
any part or lot in the matter of saving piety. I do not speak 
of those who knowingly and deliberately make these their 
chief grounds of preference ; but I affirm that it is wholly 
anti- Christian, and an insult to the crucified Savior, to yield 
any, the smallest, place to worldly motives in choosing the 
Christian position which we will occupy. Let Christ and 
conscience decide in this matter. "Put ye on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the 
lusts thereof." The Gospel will admit of no compromise 
here. This is its point of honor, which it can not, and will 
not, yield by a single iota. I feel called upon to use the 
language of unmeasured denunciation against a mistake, so 
often fatal to hopeful beginnings in religion — so very often 
fatal to the religious prospects of young men. I deem this 
point of sufficient importance to receive more particular and 
detailed illustration. 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 135 

Without stopping here to consider the grosser forms which 
this grave offense against the Savior's dignity familiarly as- 
sumes, I will only refer to such as are most likely to be found 
in cultivated, aspiring minds. A demand is often put forth 
in this quarter for more tasteful developments of Christianity 
than we are wont to meet with in its every-day history. Ac- 
customed to look for the heautiful and the poetical in their 
speculations as well as in external objects, persons of this 
class can conceive of nothing higher or nobler in the Gospel 
than its adaptations to minister to this universal want of cul- 
tivated, polished society ; and they have little true respect, 
and less sympathy for any manifestation of piety which does 
not conform to their special tastes. They have a theory on 
the subject, which requires that the divine Author of all the 
beauty and harmony of the material world, as well as the 
world of intellect, should, for still higher reasons, observe the 
same great principles in His plans and operations for bringing 
men to heaven. I have stated the substance of the theory, 
which is, however, variously modified by habit, education, 
and temperament. And I remark that this demand upon the 
Gospel quite loses sight of the fact, that the salvation of souls 
is its grand design and object, to which mental and social 
improvement are only incidental and secondary ; that Chris- 
tianity finds the world immersed in darkness, and vice, and 
depravity ; so that its great work on earth is that of elabora- 
tion, of renovation, of preparation, for a higher estate of ma- 
ture graces and perfect k arrn °m es - It has, of necessity, a 
great deal of rough work to do ; its processes must be adapted 
to the material to be acted on, no less than to the results to 
be produced. The symphonies divine that charm the angels 
are not so well fitted to this sinful world, which has con- 
trived to array its tempers, and tastes, and tendencies against 
its Maker, in a hostility far more brutish than angelic. The 
means and appliances of the Gospel, in order to be effective, 
must recognize the conditions and the disabilities of the be 



136 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

ings over whom its conquests are to be won ; and whoever 
would he an effective co-worker with God in this broad field, 
must, like God, be content to accommodate his message and 
ministry to the multitude. Let no man who has raised him- 
self to the great purpose of living for his race and for eter- 
nity, indulge in the idle fancy that he can gain his chosen end 
by herding with the philosophers, and propounding Christian- 
ity to the multitude in learned theses. Let him rather come 
down from the high places of intellectual pride, and put him- 
self in communication with the masses. These are not yet 
polished, or intelligent, or able to appreciate all that in heav- 
en will be familiar as household words. In the most favor- 
able state of society which has ever existed on the earth, the 
multitude of men have been uneducated — have been doomed 
to toil, and to comparative poverty. To this condition of our 
race the Gospel at first adapted its lessons and its agencies, 
it may be, from choice, but assuredly from necessity — a ne- 
cessity that still exists in all its force. I may add that the 
demand for more tasteful or philosophical developments of 
Christianity can only be satisfied at the expense of the im- 
mensely important class of men for whose special benefit the 
Christian revelation was promulgated — for " the Gospel was 
preached to the poor." The reform proposed might accom- 
modate the tenth of a tithe of the population of highly civil- 
ized nations ; but its natural tendency would be to separate 
this favored class from the masses, and bring them under a 
Christian culture, the most intellectual and graceful, it may 
be, but wholly inapplicable to the condition and wants of the 
people. These, forsaken by their natural guides, their can- 
dlesticks removed from their midst, must sink into hopeless 
impiety and ignorance but for God's mercy, which is wont 
to interpose, and raise up prophets from among themselves. 

But this Divine interference for the prevention of results, 
utterly and eternally ruinous, does not adequately provide 
against some of the most deplorable evils that mar the piety 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 137 

and fetter the energies of the Church. The Gospel is a lev- 
eler, and contemplates our whole sinful race as " made of one 
blood." It will have " the rich and the poor meet together" 
at the feet of Jesus, and forget all earthly distinctions in rapt 
meditation on the infinite goodness and glory of God, and on 
the -heavenly world, to which they both look by faith, as to 
a common inheritance. It will have the lettered and t^.e un- 
taught, the high-born and the low, mingle before a common 
altar, and bow before a common Savior. It abhors caste, 
and is ambitious of bringing together in one vast brotherhood 
of faith, and feeling, and co-operation, all blood-bought souls. 
It will have the rich contribute their wealth, the noble their 
influence, the learned their wisdom, the poor their sterling 
virtues, their patient toil, their might of sympathy and of sin- 
ew, to the building up of a pure and powerful Church. It is 
by tbe combination of all classes and all talents that human 
society prospers most, and, for aught that appears, it is the 
Savior's design to constitute and edify the Church upon the 
same principle. Now the pride of man comes in to thwart 
this benevolent design. It will have an aristocracy, where 
Heaven can, least of all, tolerate it. It puts asunder what 
God has joined together. As far as the anti-Christian theory, 
against which T so earnestly protest, is carried out in prac- 
tice, it monopolizes and covers up the light. It sequesters 
talent and influence but to place them in positions where 
they act not at all, or at the greatest disadvantage, upon the 
general interests of religion and humanity. 

Nor must I pass over, as too unimportant to deserve notice, 
the inevitable tendency of this religious -exclusiveness to gen- 
erate a spirit and a power antagonist to the universal equality 
guaranteed by our free institutions. We have no privileged 
orders, nor is it likely, in the existing temper of the public 
mind, that talent, or wealth, or ancestry, or even great vir- 
tues, will ever give to their possessors a social position dan- 
gerous to the rights of the humblest citizen ; but. I must think 



138 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

the lovers of our republican institutions and manners will 
have some cause for solicitude, if the growing tendency 
among our influential classes to desert the popular walks of 
religion for more select and pretending connections shall in-. 
crease in a similar ratio for twenty or fifty years to come. 
The danger is not at all diminished by Christian forms-and 
nam$s ; and a religious aristocracy which is completely shel- 
tex - ed under the guarantees of universal freedom of conscience, 
secured to all by our free institutions, has no security to give 
in return to those institutions that it will not, at least, gene- 
rate a spirit dangerous to their purity and perpetuity. No 
pride is more blinding and corrupting than spiritual pride, 
and men who are ever fancying themselves upon a lofty em- 
inence, unconsciously acquire a habit of looking down upon 
the rest of the world.* 

* I shall have been greatly misunderstood if it is inferred from these 
statements and reasonings that I entertain uncharitable views, or would 
call in question the sincere piety and Christian virtues of the religious 
denominations of this country. My single object is, to expose a prac- 
tical and most pernicious error, which is perpetually forced upon my 
attention by my position, and by some acquaintance with the present 
condition of the American Church. It is no reflection upon the con- 
scientious and devout members of any Christian sect to intimate that 
persons attracted to its communion or its ministry by other than strict 
ly religious considerations, are not very likely to become eminent for 
Christian attainments or usefulness. It is well understood that such 
proselytes are frequently admitted into their new relations with a de- 
gree of distrust and caution, of which no conjecture could be formed 
from the eclat which is given to their conversions by ar sectarian press. 
In that particular branch of the Church which numerically profits most 
by the tendency I have exposed, a conviction is evidently gaining 
ground, that it is better policy, upon the whole, to train up its own 
ministry, than to open so wide a door to recruits from the seminaries 
and pulpits of other denominations. Moderate men are becoming 
startled at the vaulting speed with which the neophyte so generally 
hastens to embrace the most extreme opinions and policy known to his 
new sphere of speculation and activity ; while, to considerate men of 
all parties, ^t must be obvious that, however a deep, hereditary rever- 
ence for imposing forms, and high, exclusive claims, may be compati- 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 139 

A question of far deeper import is this : What are the 
more strictly religious effects of this defection from the pop- 

ble with humble, evangelical piety in persons trained from their child- 
hood under such influences, there may, at least, be some danger to the 
unstable, giddy mind of the novice, who, without any such safeguards, 
is suddenly brought in contact with ideas to him so new and so mag- 
nificent. 

I hope I shall not be thought to bestow upon this topic a measure of 
attention greater than its intrinsic importance. As a practical question, 
its importance is every day increasing in this country, and the time may 
not be far away when it will force itself upon the consideration of all 
thoughtful minds. As a mere sectarian question, it may well enough 
be regarded as trivial ; for it is of little consequence to the enlightened 
Christian whether the losing party suffer more by mortification than 
the winning gains by the enjoyment of a petty triumph. There are 
considerations, however, of far deeper import both to the individual se- 
ceder and to the cause of our common Christianity. These easy tran- 
sitions from the Church in which we were reared, or into which we 
have been pi-ovidentially led to enter, on our conversion, to another, 
however pure or orthodox, can hardly ever be effected without injury 
to the cause of Christ ; and I must think them almost never innocent, 
unless when they are prompted by strictly conscientious motives. It 
would generally be better to submit to great inconveniences, and even 
to tolerate slight errors in doctrine or discipline, rather than resort to 
a remedy so violent and dangerous. To the individual himself it is 
likely to prove a very hazardous experiment to forsake the hereditary, 
or the chosen communion for another. He deprives himself of ad- 
vantages not to be expected from new religious associations, however 
pure and elevating. Ties, which religion sanctifies and strengthens for 
itself, are weal&ned or broken asunder. The genial sympathies of 
domestic piety are chilled ; the unquestioned authority of hereditary 
faith is shaken, and all the nameless influences that guard and help a 
youth, seeking and serving God in the midst of his kindred, and under 
the approving and watchful eyes of the good men with whose faces 
and names are associated his hallowed recollections and impressiona 
of the Lord's house, are all utterly lost. I will not affirm that such 
evils uniformly result from such defections, nor that they are, in all 
cases, of sufficient force to interfere fatally with the successful prosecu- 
tion of a religious life. It is no exaggeration, however, to say, that 
they are not of rare occurrence, and that they are wont to exert a very 
pernicious influence on personal piety. 



140 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

ular Christianity upon the persons most concerned ? How is 
it with the dainty seceders who loathe the manna that " cov- 

Evils, of a still graver character than any that befall the individual, 
are likely to follow such recreancy. In proportion to his position and 
influence does he inflict upon the Church and the general interests of 
religion the greatest calamity ; not chiefly by withdrawing his talents 
and resources from their appropriate sphere of usefulness, but by griev- 
ing pious souls — by awakening distrust of his own sincerity, and re- 
sentment for' his recreancy, and by provoking uncharitableness, jeal- 
ousy, sectarianism, and evil speaking in multitudes of professing Chris- 
tians. I have usually been led to doubt whether an influential layman 
or a minister can ever reasonably expect to do as much good in any 
new Church relations, as he unavoidably does harm by violating the 
old. It should be kept in view, in estimating the probable effects of 
such changes, that a man never carries with him into his new field of 
action more than a small portion of the influence, and other means of 
usefulness, which he had acquired by faithful services and an upright 
walk. Of these he is destined to make, at least, a pai'tial forfeiture by 
the transition, and years must probably elapse before he can regain the 
vantage ground which he has so lightly abandoned. Suspected or de- 
nounced by those whom he deserts, he must pass a long probation ere 
he wins the confidence of his new associates. 

Upon the irreligious world the effect of such instability is yet more 
observable and pernicious. It leads to a distrust of all pretensions to 
piety, and goes far to confirm the too prevalent suspicion, that when 
educated or influential men become religious, they have commonly 
some selfish end to subserve. What gives additional force to such sus- 
picions is the notorious fact that the transition, frequently as it occurs 
of late, is almost never made where any personal sacrifice, present or 
prospective, is involved. I do not allow myself to doubt that, in sev- 
eral instances, at least, educated men and ministers have felt constrain- 
ed to give up old and contract new Church relations ; but I can scarce- 
ly recollect a case in which the change was made in the face of losses 
or sufferings. It is usually from low to higher salaries — from more to 
less labor or exposure — from less cultivated, or wealthy, or fashionable 
communities, to those deemed more so. I would not dare express or 
indulge distrust in regard to the motives which, in any particular in- 
stance, may have led to such changes ; but the facts to which I have 
adverted are incontrovertible as they are universally known. There 
are few observing or prominent Christians, I apprehend, who have not 
had some occasion to receive, in silence, the cutting rebukes which ir- 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 14i 

ers the face of the wilderness," of which "every man may- 
gather according to his eating," and deem it distasteful to 
receive with the multitude, seated on the ground, the bread 
which Jesus so liberally blesses and breaks ? Of all who 
lightly turn away from the lowlier faith of their early educa- 
tion and their fathers' house, to rear their showy altars upon 
the high places of the land, whether seduced by vanity, or 
ambition, or fastidiousness, it may well be doubted if rfcany 
secure more than the shadow of true religion. If they have 
borne with them to this false, exposed position, some meas 
ure of spirituality, the growth of a more fruitful soil and of 
a more benignant clime, it speedily withers and decays for 
want of a participation in those popular sympathies, from 
which they start back with a disgust so profound. Their 

religious men are accustomed to visit on such transactions. I am free 
to confess that, in my opinion, no measure of blame or reproaches can 
possibly transcend the demerits of a man who, for any reasons lower 
or weaker than such as are strictly conscientious and constraining, puts 
in jeopardy so many of the precious interests of religion. He betrays 
a sacred trust. Up to the full measure of his influence, and talents, and 
position, he inflicts a grievous wrong upon the communion in whose 
bosom he has been nurtured, or into which he has obtained admission. 
He diminishes its ability to do good, and casts a doubt on its purity or 
orthodoxy. If a minister, set apart and ordained as a teacher of re- 
ligion and a dispenser of its holy sacraments, his power to do evil is 
greatly augmented, and with it the guilt of such a defection. His new 
investiture of ecclesiastical authority and dignity is equivalent to a pub- 
lic declaration that others are but rash intruders into the sacred office. 
He thus wounds their reputation and weakens their influence. As far 
as in him lies, he shakes the confidence of the people in their pastors, 
and despoils their message of its power over the sinner's conscience. 
He denies the character and immunities of Christ's ministers, not to a 
few obscure individuals, but to nine tenths of all the consecrated men 
upon whom the population of this great country depend for religious 
instruction and consolation. I am ready to admit that conviction may 
be so clear and controlling as to make it a good man's duty to act in de- 
fiance of all these considerations ; but no sane mind can, for a moment, 
hesitate to believe, that to do so on lower grounds is one of the gravest 
offenses against religion of which a human being can be guilty. 



142 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

dwelling places are unquestionably on the Parnassus or the 
Olympus of the Christian world ; but these mountain tops 
have neither depth of earth, nor springs of water, and no 
plant of righteousness is likely to strike its roots into the hard 
rock that composes their shining but arid summits. 

Such aristocratic aspirants after a graceful piety (I call 
them aristocratic for want of a better term to mark this per- 
versa development of Christianity) naturally fall into two 
classes, and exhibit two great corruptions of the Gospel. 
The more intellectual and philosophical part commonly wan- 
der into that cold region of unfruitful speculations, where Ra- 
tionalism or Transcendentalism, or whatever neology happens 
to be in fashion, claims empire. The merely fashionable, 
and ambitious, and fastidious portion more usually pay their 
courtly homage to graceful forms or venerable reminiscences, 
and find and exhibit, at least, some of the semblances of spir- 
itual piety in the religion of the imagination.* 

* The strong tendency in our religious operations to gather the rich 
and the poor into separate folds, and so to generate and establish in the 
Church distinctions utterly at variance with the spirit of our political in- 
stitutions, is the very worst result of the multiplication of sects among 
us ; and I fear it must be admitted that the evil is greatly aggravated 
by the otherwise benignant working of the voluntary system. With- 
out insisting further upon the probable or possible injury which may 
befall our free country from this conflict of agencies, ever the most 
powerful in the formation of national and individual character, no one, 
I am sure, can fail to recognize in this development an influence utterly 
and irreconcilably hostile to the genius and cherished objects of Chris- 
tianity. It is the peculiar glory of the Gospel, that, even under the 
most arbitrary governments, it has usually been able to vindicate and 
practically exemplify the essential equality of man. It has had one doc- 
trine and one hope for all its children ; and the highest and the lowest 
have been constrained to acknowledge one holy law of brotherhood in 
the common faith of which they are made partakers. Nowhere else, 
I believe, but in the United States — certainly nowhere else to the 
same extent — does this anti-Christian separation of classes prevail in 
the Christian Church. The beggar in his tattered vestments walks the 
splendid courts of St. Peter's, and kneels at its costly altars by the side 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 143 

I can not part with the topic under consideration without 
bestowing a passing thought upon the God-dishonoring sen- 

of dukes and cardinals. The peasant in his wooden shoes is welcomed 
in the gorgeous churches of Notre Dame and the Madeleine; and even 
iu England, where political and social distinctions are more rigorously 
enforced than in any other country on earth, the lord and the peasant, 
the richest and the poorest, are usually occupants of the same church, 
and partakers of the same communion. That the reverse of all this is 
true in many parts of this country, every observing man knows full 
well ; and what is yet more deplorable, while the lines of demarcation 
between the different classes have already become sufficiently distinct, 
the tendency is receiving new strength and development in a rapidly 
augmenting ratio. Even in country places, where the population is 
sparse, and the artificial distinctions of society are little known, the 
working of this strange element is, in many instances, made manifest, 
and a petty coterie of village magnates may be found worshiping God 
apart from the body of the people. But the evil is much more appa- 
rent, as well as more deeply seated, in our populous towns, where the 
causes which produce it have been longer in operation, and have more 
fully enjoyed the favor of circumstances. In these great centres of 
wealth, intelligence, and influence, the separation between the classes 
is, in many instances, complete, and in many more the process is rap- 
idly progressive. There are crowded religious congregations composed 
so exclusively of the wealthy as scarcely to embrace an indigent fam- 
ily or individual ; and the number of such churches, where the Gospel 
is never preached to the poor, is constantly increasing. Rich men, in- 
stead of associating themselves with their more humble fellow-Chris- 
tians, where their money as well as their influence and counsels are so 
much needed, usually combine to erect magnificent churches, in which 
sittings are too expensive for any but people of fortune, and from which 
their less-favored brethren are as effectually and peremptorily exclu- 
ded as if there were dishonor or contagion in their presence. A congre- 
gation is thus constituted, able, without the slightest inconvenience, to 
bear the pecuniary burdens of twenty churches, monopolizing and con- 
signing to comparative inactivity intellectual, moral, and material re- 
sources, for want of which so many other congregations are doomed to 
struggle with the most embarrassing difficulties. Can it for a moment 
be thought that such a state of things is desirable, or in harmony with 
the spirit and design of the Gospel ? 

A more difficult question arises when we inquire after a remedy for 
evils too glaring to be overlooked, and too grave to be tolerated with- 



144 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

timents in which this deplorable fallacy has its origin. This 
demand for a Christianity more refined and tasteful than 

out an effort to palliate, if not to remove them. The most obvious pal- 
liative, and one which has already been tried to some extent by wealthy 
churches or individuals, is the erection of free places of worship for the 
poor. Such a provision for this class of persons would be more effect- 
ual in any other part of the world than in the United States. Whether 
it arises from the operation of our political system, or from the easy at- 
tainment of at least the prime necessaries of life, the poorer classes here 
are characterized by a proud spirit, which will not submit to receive 
even the highest benefits in any form that implies* inferiority or de- 
pendence. This strong and prevalent feeling must continue to inter- 
pose serious obstacles in the way of these laudable attempts. If in a 
few instances churches for the poor have succeeded in our large cities, 
where the theory of social equality is so imperfectly realized in the 
actual condition of the people, and where the presence of a multitude 
of indigent foreigners tends to lower the sentiment of independence so 
strong in native-born Americans, the system is yet manifestly incapable 
of general application to the religious wants of our population. The 
same difficulty usually occurs in all attempts to induce the humbler 
classes to worship with the rich in sumptuous churches by reserving 
for their benefit a portion of the sittings free, or at a nominal rent. A 
few only can be found who are willing to be recognized and provided 
for as beneficiaries and paupers, while the multitude will always pre- 
fer to make great sacrifices in order to provide for themselves in some 
humbler fane. It must bo admitted that this subject is beset witfe 
practical difficulties, which are not likely to be removed speedily, or 
without some great and improbable revolution in our religious affairs. 
Yet if the respectable Christian denominations most concerned in the 
subject shall pursue a wise and liberal policy for the future, something 
may be done to check the evil. They may retard its rapid growth, 
perhaps, though it will most likely be found impossible to eradicate it 
altogether. It ought to be well understood, that the multiplication of 
magnificent churches is daily making the line of demarcation between 
the rich and the poor more and more palpable and impassable. There 
are many good reasons for the erection of such edifices. Increasing 
wealth and civilization seem to call for a liberal and tasteful outlay in 
behalf of religion, yet is it the dictate of prudence no less than of duty 
to balance carefully the good and the evil of every enterprise. It 
should ever be kept in mind, that such a church virtually writes above 
its sculptured portals an irrevocable prohibition to the poor, " Procci] 
O procul este profani." 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 145 



that of Christ, proceeds upon the assumption that God is 
specially pleased and honored by the conversion of persons of 

I will not pretend to determine how far it might be wise, even if it 
were practicable, to check the liberal spirit now so active in multiply- 
ing sumptuous religious edifices. We have perhaps move encourage- 
ment to look in another direction for the melioration desired. There 
can be no doubt that a general increase of humble, spiritual religion 
would operate as a powerful check upon the prevailing disposition to 
prefer communion with opulent congregations, rather than pursue tlio 
walks of a lowlier piety in company with the poor. The same good 
ends would be farther promoted by the increasing prevalence of a lib- 
eral catholic spirit. A decided and simultaneous advance in piety and 
charity, though it should stop short of harmonizing conflicting sects and 
opinions, and bringing their votaries to worship in a common temple, 
might yet be sufficient to reach and considerably mitigate some of the 
greatest hardships to which I have adverted. In such an improved 
state of Christian sentiment, a congregation or a sect, opulent in intel- 
lectual or pecuniary means, beyond the ratio of its numbers, might eas- 
ily confer the greatest benefits on the feeble and destitute. A wealthy 
denomination, with few of the poor under its ministry, and with lit- 
tle access to this class, would then be inclined to aid those who are 
providentially called to preach the Gospel to the masses. How easi- 
ly might one of our great metropolitan churches relieve a dozen poor 
congregations from the burden of debts, or other embarrassments, un- 
der which they are left to straggle on from year to year ! What ines- 
timable benefits might a denomination, at once the smallest and richest, 
confer, by aiding the poorer sects in extending the blessings of religion 
and education to the vast multitude placed by divine Providence under 
their influence and watchcare ! Now it can hardly be doubted, that 
with such an enlargement of charity as I have supposed, there would 
come more enlarged views of duty and privilege, and that sectarian 
lines might cease to be insuperable barriers in the way of a far more 
exuberant and diffusive liberality than now prevails. Under such bet- 
ter auspices it would at least be no longer possible for opulent, enlight- 
ened Christian denominations to look with hostility or even indifference 
upon their fellow-laborers in the vineyard of a common Master. The 
sympathies as well as the resources of the whole Christian Church would 
look about in quest of its wants and substantial interests ; while there 
would inevitably arise bonds of brotherhood, so many and so strong, 
between all the members of the one Christian family, as would go far 
to exclude all the petty jealousies and heart-burnings which wealth and 

a 



146 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

literary taste and polished manners ; of men accustomed to 
good society, and well read in good authors. Disguise it as 
we will, that is the fundamental idea of this anti- Christian 
theory. Now, for aught that appears, these accomplishments 
do not figure very largely in Heaven's estimate of man. I 
can not help suspecting that John Bunyan, John Nelson, and 
worthfes of this class, wore, in God's sight, the insignia of a 
truer and higher nobility than the choicest spirits of the brill- 
iant eras of Elizabeth and Anne. 

What are the attributes most prized and most sought for in 
man by the crucified Savior ? Charity and purity. These are 
the cardinal virtues of the Gospel. Every one that loveth 
is born of God, and knoweth God. If we love one another, 

position are sure to provoke in the Church no less than in the world, 
when they forget their proper mission. 

One lesson more, we should imagine, would be ineffaceably impressed 
upon those Christian denominations which, through providential means, 
or their own special adaptations and exertions, monopolize a large por- 
tion of the influential classes, while they have signally failed of obtain- 
ing a corresponding development among the great body of the people. 
It is a lesson of enlarged catholic liberality. They have, in their rela- 
tive position, a clear demonstration, at least, that others as well as they 
have a dispensation of the Gospel committed to them. That surely 
can not be the only apostolic and legitimate system of faith or polity, 
which, after an experiment carried through successive generations of 
men, has, in this country, shown itself essentially incapable of pene- 
trating the masses. They who evangelize the wealthy, the intellect- 
ual, and the refined, do unquestionably perform a good work ; and 
there may be those who have a special vocation to this inviting field. 
No liberal-minded Christian will undervalue their efforts, or desire to 
call in question the genuineness of their piety, or the validity of their 
ecclesiastical system; but it may be well for all parties to remember 
that there are signs of apostleship older and surer than this mission to 
the rich ; and they need not despair of making good their claim to a 
part in this ministry who can appeal, as their Master did, to eminent 
success among the masses, and affirm, like Him, that through their in- 
strumentality " the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the 
lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and thj 

POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED UNTO THEM." 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. ' 147 

God dwelleth in us, and Ins love is perfected in us. God is 
love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God 
in him. The entire law is fulfilled hy him who loves God 
with all the heart, and his neighbor as himself. This is 
glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will 
to men. The Gospel is satisfied when this great end is 
achieved, and it labors, from age to age, to implant this law 
of universal affinity and brotherhood in all hearts, and thus 
to establish a vast system of order and Divine harmony, wor- 
thy of the wisdom and of the mercy of God. And this is its 
primary, proper object. High intellectual culture, advanced 
civilization, refinement of sentiments and of manners, do in- 
deed attend, or rather follow, its progress, but only as inci- 
dental results of the great moral changes which have their 
sphere in the moral nature and character of man. The mor- 
al transformation is all that the Gospel, as such, aims to ac- 
complish. This makes the sinner a child of God, fits him 
for heavenly society and pursuits, makes him a joint heir 
with Christ. These are no doubtful announcements, but first 
principles of the Gospel, which no sane Christian will for a 
moment call in question ; and they suggest the irresistible con- 
clusion that that is the most Christian church, and that the 
most apostolic ministry, which most successfully accomplish 
these most Christian ends. No matter who they are that are 
converted, and sanctified, and brought to heaven. The ig- 
norant, the outcast, the Hottentot, the slave — these are 
Christ's well-beloved brethren, and with Him heirs of God. 
The princes of this world may be glad to go to heaven, if 
they may, in such company, and angels would exult to be co- 
workers with God in preaching the Gospel to the poor. What 
lesson of instruction do I find in this digression ? A stern re- 
buke of that wretched fastidiousness which refuses to be satis- 
fied with such a type of Christianity as satisfies Christ — de- 
monstrative proof that this reiterated demand for a more taste- 
ful and philosophical religion is unreasonable and unphilo- 



148 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

sophical as well as unchristian— new force in the exhortation, 
" Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." 
Would you find for yourselves a religion adapted to the soul's 
pressing wants, and to the demands of a perishing world ? 
Drink deeply of the Christian sentiments and sympathies of 
the people. Would you act a heroic part in the holy war 
which God and good men are carrying on against error and 
sin ? Throw yourselves into the midst of the masses, where 
there are most hearts to be won, and most souls to be saved. 
Do not be forever gazing at the toy that glitters on the top of 
the steeple, but bend your regards upon the living stones that 
compose Christ's holy temple, upon the undying souls that 
throng its inner and outer courts. There the true altar and 
the authorized priest are sure to be found, and there God has 
work to do for all who, like His well-beloved Son, are con- 
tent to abase themselves that they may be exalted. 

I have not left time for the discussion of some other topics 
which I can not wholly overlook. Educated young men often 
find another stumbling-block in the presumed or dreaded in- 
terference of an honest consecration to Christ with their am- 
bitious, and, as they are prone to esteem them, their pure and 
honorable aspirations. . My own observations on this subject 
would lead me to regard this as one of the most common and 
fatal causes of backsliding, as well as procrastination. Many, 
who hear and recognize the voice of God, refuse to enter His 
vineyard, because they are not quite sure that the employ- 
ments and immunities to be assigned them there will be 
agreeable and satisfactory. Impiety never assumes a more 
daring attitude than this, however the rank offense may be 
disguised or concealed by circumstances, or by false reason- 
ings. What is implied by the postponement or abandonment 
of a religious course on such grounds ? Distrust in God is 
implied, and unbelief in its most odious, atrocious, insolent 
form. Has God, then, no right to interfere with our plans ? 
This mental discipline, and these accomplishments, which 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 149 



are too good to be subjected to His control — were they ac- 
quired — are they held, on terms altogether independent of 
Jehovah ? Is the inexperienced youth, fresh from the schools, 
and proverbially ignorant of the world and of the future, 
somewhat better qualified to choose his own way, and thread 
the labyrinth of life alone, than God is to guide him ? You 
will not be a Christian, because Christianity confessedly as- 
signs you a sphere of action where God and conscience must 
be consulted. You seek a freer range and a wider sphere 
Take them, and then inquire if you are beyond the domain 
of God. Are you really freer to choose or surer to win ? Is 
responsibility excluded, or danger of disappointment and dis- 
aster ? No ; for God reigns every where. All that is gained 
by this daring revolt against His authority is the dire privi- 
lege of working out our destiny without any promise of guid- 
ance, or grace, or reward, yet always under the Divine su- 
pervision and control — always in conflict with His revealed 
will — always obnoxious to His displeasure, and certain of ul- 
timate ruin, whatever fortunes may be conceded to a career 
which is, at best, only a prolonged rebellion against God. 

After saying so much of the religious aspects of this case, 
I must not omit to expose the shallow views of life on which 
this great practical error is based. As a class, truly pious 
men are the most fortunate in the world. Estimate their 
successes by honors won, by their usefulness, by their attain- 
ments, or by their enjoyments, and these persons greatly out- 
strip their competitors. I will not stop to inquire why it is so, 
though I doubt not there is in the thing both a divine Prov- 
idence and a divine philosophy. Heaven guides and cheers 
on the man who is content to receive his commission from 
above, while the virtues and safeguards of religion do natu- 
rally minister to his successes even in secular pursuits. The 
fact, however, is all I contend for here. Common experience 
is a demonstration that godliness is profitable for this life, as 
well as that to come. It is something more than impiety — 



150 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

it is gross, blind folly for a young man, setting out in life, to 
guard against the disturbing influence of religion in the set- 
tlement of his plans. God is likely to be his wisest coun- 
selor and his most powerful auxiliary, and to exalt him in 
proportion to the humility of his submission to the divine au- 
thority. 

I must add another remark. It is unquestionably true 
that piety often promotes, while it seldom retards, a man's 
progress in the world. It is no less so, and no less proper to 
mark the fact, that men who seek to make of religious pre- 
tensions and church relations instruments of ambition or 
gain, are almost sure of meeting with signal disappointment. 
Success in such attempts would offer a dangerous temptation 
to human virtue, and fill the churches with hypocrites ; but 
success in such attempts, in such a country as this, where 
the government is neutral, and all sects have fair play, is 
nearly impossible. Aristocracy in religion meets with a po- 
tent antagonist in the legal and social democracy that uni-. 
versally prevails. Proscription for religious opinions is near- 
ly impracticable in any form, where there is a multitude of 
sects, and the weak are prone to unite against any encroach- 
ment by the strong. In such a state of things there is an 
open field for industry and merit, in which no sectarian badge 
can win or lose the prize. There is no reward for the hypoc- 
risy which would profess, or the base cowardice or heartless 
prudence which would shun to profess any opinion, or bear 
any name, for selfish objects. The temptation to sin in this 
matter is really so weak that there is little need o£ provid- 
ing any safeguard against it beyond a statement such as has 
been made. Neither cupidity nor vanity has much to gain 
by " making provision for the flesh," when neither emolu- 
ment nor influence is to be won by recreancy to principle. 

The short-sighted ambition which covets higher and bright- 
er spheres of effort and manifestation than comport with th6 
claims of duty or the arrangements of Providence, is wont to 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 15. 

fall into another capital error. la paying to circumstances 
their vain court for facilities and rewards, seldom granted but 
as the fruit of patient labor and practical self-denial, these 
impatient aspirants after distinction are insensibly led away 
from the only theatre of action adapted to their character and 
attainments. Talent is ever best developed, and commonly 
best rewarded, where it is most wanted. It should therefore 
respect the great laws of demand and supply ; and while the 
wide earth and boundless sea are open to its enterprise, should 
never press too eagerly into petty, glutted marts. An educa- 
ted Christian young man, who, in all the attainable good be- 
fore him, has eyes to see something better and nobler than 
mere pecuniary gain, can not fail to perceive a most hopeful 
field of usefulness in his connection with one of the great pop- 
ular Christian denominations of this country. It is unavoid- 
able, that among the vast multitudes, so rapidly gathered into 
these broad folds by primitive zeal and labors, many will lack 
culture, and intelligence, and refinement. Education and lit 
erature, polished eloquence, and profound learning, naturally 
follow, though they seldom precede the greatest successes of 
young and rising sects. When such wants are most pressing, 
precisely then is there likely to exist the most urgent demand 
for such qualifications to satisfy them. 

A religious community whose successes have outstripped 
all its anticipations, suddenly finds itself responsible for the 
intellectual, as well as moral improvement of millions. It 
has reached a point in its history where a demand for cul- 
tivated talent is of the most urgent character. It must 
have educated men ; and literary attainment, when united 
with piety and good sense, is sure to be placed in positions 
the most favorable for the efficient exertion of extensive and 
salutary influence. It almost necessarily happens that learn- 
ing, and eloquence, and refinement, acquire a consideration 
and a power to do good, great in proportion to their scarcity, 
and to the multitude of demands upon such qualifications. 



152 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OP 

Just such a theatre as enlightened, sanctified ambition should 
most desire, is here opened to the Christian '■youth. It prof- 
fers useful, congenial, and honorable employment. It insures 
the earliest, fullest development of his mental and moral re- 
sources. It promises all reasonable and desirable exemption 
from the tedious probation and discouraging competition 
which he may be doomed to encounter elsewhere. It offers 
him equal and honorable partnership in the holy work of 
training a host of immortal beings for usefulness, purity, hap- 
piness, and heaven. 

The folly of turning away from these outspread fields wav- 
ing with golden harvests, and echoing all around with Ma- 
cedonian cries for more laborers, is only less than the guilt 
which is always superadded, when, in addition to this con- 
tempt for the suggestions of a sound discretion, some violence 
is also inflicted upon the conscience. And here I can not 
refrain from a passing remark on the benignant relations 
which religion ever sustains to the practical movements of 
business and of life. So nicely and so graciously is the great 
scheme of an overruling, watchful Providence adapted to our 
various circumstances, that the most inexperienced youth — 
the merest novice in affairs — has little more to do than sim- 
ply to obey the dictates of an enlightened conscience, in or- 
der to secure all the advantages of the most comprehensive 
and well-digested plans, and of the deepest insight into the 
future. An unwavering trust in God and his word is the 
best guide, as well as the best safeguard. It is a great sim- 
plifier of life's complicated pursuits, and endows each single- 
hearted follower of Jesus Christ with a precocious, heavenly 
wisdom. 

In any thing I have said, I do not mean to intimate that 
both our actual piety and our Christian profession may not 
involve the most serious consequences. I know too well the 
genius of the Gospel to inculcate a doctrine so foreign from 
its avowals and its spirit. Great sufferings and great sacri- 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 153 

fices do, unquestionably, enter into God's entire scheme for 
diffusing and propagating the true religion, and for the moral 
discipline of individuals. Christ was made perfect by suffer- 
ing, and through much tribulation we are called to enter 
into the kingdom of heaven. Afflictions work out fdt the 
saints an exceeding weight of glory. Not only are Christians' 
subject to the common lot of mortals, which is usually one of 
many pains and sorrows, but they are often called to suffer for 
Christ's sake. It is fundamental to the Christian system that 
men were redeemed by suffering, and hardly less so, as far 
as history is our teacher, that the best achievements of the 
Gospel are to be carried in the midst of peril, and loss, and 
agony. In this great work of toil and sacrifice, it is, no 
doubt, the will of God that young men, and educated young 
men, shall have a principal share. God chooses them be- 
cause they are strong, and He intends to make them the chief 
of His instruments for the accomplishment of His great de- 
signs of mercy. Let them look their calling fairly in the face, 
and enter on the career of duty, well aware of the conditions 
upon which they serve a crucified Redeemer. None more 
need to stir up the gift that is within them, to gird about their 
loins, and put on the armor of righteousness. I may safely 
say that no policy is so dangerous as caution and cowardice. 
I may confidently warn them of the folly and danger of " ma- 
king provision for the flesh," by refraining from such a dedi- 
cation as may exact from them the sternest conditions known 
to our Christian vocation. If great results can be attained 
by great efforts and great sufferings, what generous heart 
will refuse the sacrifice ? If our own holiness and the hap- 
piness of others may be promoted in proportion to the expend- 
iture of toil, or talent, or wealth, who will not feel that the 
outlay is reasonable and even politic ? 

But the argument likely to be most effectual with ingen- 
uous and truly pious minds is derived from the genius of our 
religion. The Gospel is a way of salvation by grace. It 
G 2 



1M RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

lays the Christian under obligations immeasurably strong, 
which he can never satisfy, while it awakens in him a sense 
of gratitude ever restless and studious of methods by which 
it may. testify its loyalty, and crown with honor the great 
Benefactor, who is too high to be repaid for all His mercies. 
This deep, undying sentiment of the pious soul finds utter- 
ance in thanksgiving and adoration — in prayer for the exten- 
sion of the kingdom of Christ, and in all the ways by which 
a sincere Christian makes manifestation of his piety. But 
the unwasted, struggling impulse gains strength by all its ac- 
tivities, and longs for new modes of exercise and develop- 
ment. Dissatisfied with the little it can do for the glory of the 
Savior, it would gladly give its testimony by suffering. This 
feeling is natural ; and it is strong in every bosom in propor- 
tion as piety is profound and intense. It has led many mis- 
guided Christians to devote themselves to penances and vol- 
untary inflictions. It led the apostles to rejoice " that they 
were counted worthy to suffer for Christ." Paul avowed a 
desire to endure martyrdom for the satisfaction of this pro- 
found sentiment, and many early Christians joyfully submit- 
ted to the severest tortures as a testimony of their devotion 
and gratitude to Christ. Not many in these days of peace 
and toleration are likely to be called to pass through such an 
ordeal ; but if the spirit to suffer the loss of all things for 
Christ's sake be not still with us, then has the true glory of 
the Church perished with her martyrs. Doubtless this spirit 
yet lives, and would be made manifest by fitting occasions. 
Doubtless there are multitudes who would encounter losses 
of all sorts — privations, labors, and even death itself — for the 
crucified Redeemer. They remember His words, that if any 
love father, or mother, or brother, or sister, or houses, or 
lands, more than Him, he can not be a disciple. They re- 
member that it is often more prudent to lose the life than to 
save it. Many even feel that they have a baptism to be 
baptized with, and are straitened till they perform it. They 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 155 

are eager to live, and, if needs be, to die for Christ. They 
have " put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and made no provision 
for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof." Their cry is, " Speak, 
Lord, thy servant heareth." They are not careful to make 
conditions. Wheresoever God's Spirit or Providence will lead, 
they stand ready to go ; neither do they call any thing their 
own which they possess, whether of talent, learning, position, 
wealth, or influence ; but regard themselves only as stewards 
of the manifold grace of God, and servants to the Church for 
Christ's sake. These are Christians such as Christ came 
down from heaven to raise up. They are the messengers of 
His mercy — ministers of grace. Their hearts throb in unison 
with Christ's — their ears are open to every Macedonian cry. 
The Church, this country, the age, and state of the world, 
want such Christians, and only want enough such speedily 
to cover the earth with righteousness. 

I have no higher wish on behalf of the young men whom 
I now address, than to see them thoroughly imbued with the 
spirit of such a religion as I have attempted to exhibit. Put 
on, my friends, put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make 
not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. I may 
claim to feel the profoundest interest in your welfare, but I 
am not afraid to trust you to the gaidance of such auspices. 
Go forth clad in these robes of purity and beauty, protected 
by this impenetrable armor of righteousness, and none who 
love you will have any thing to fear or to desire beyond. 
Christ will guide you aright. Precisely into such positions as 
are best suited to your talents, and most adapted to useful- 
ness, will He be sure to lead you. And this is the only way 
for attaining at once the highest happiness and the most per- 
fect development of the intellectual and moral powers. Here 
you are sure of having "grace sufficient for you," and that 
is the only sure pledge and hope for eminent success. Here 
alone you secure that harmony and co-operation of the moral 
with the mental forces ; that concurrence of the emotions 



156 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 



with the intellect, indispensable to the fullest development 
and the highest achievements of a human being. 

I shall close by making of the exhortation in the text a 
special application to those who hear me. I am too inti- 
mate with the liabilities and the actual history of young 
men not to be aware that many of them act in direct oppo- 
sition to tbe lessons inculcated in this discourse. They de- 
liberately "put ojfihe Lord Jesus Christ," and that for the 
very purpose of making provision for satisfying the lusts of 
the flesh. They have found unexpected difficulties in the 
way of a religious life on their first entrance upon the scenes 
of public education. The buoyancy and the levity of youth, 
the confluence of a multitude of petty temptations, small but 
eager rivalries, new demands upon time, and a new arrange- 
ment of their hours, the esprit clu corps which too often op- 
erates to an extent incompatible with an easy discharge of 
the highest moral duties ; these, and many more nameless 
evils, often combine to test whatever integrity and strength 
of religious principle and habit the inexperienced youth may 
have brought from more quiet scenes to the threshold of col- 
lege life. A brief season of trial, a manly bearing in the face 
of danger, an honest recurrence to first principles — more than 
all, humble reliance upon God, and a conscientious observ- 
ance of the duties of religion, would soon overcome difficul- 
ties which are only formidable from their novelty and their 
number. At this precise point, not a few, who come among 
us with the fairest promise, abandon their religion. Some 
do it with apparent deliberation, and at once ; others grad- 
ually, and, it may be, insensibly, but none the less effectual- 
ly and fatally. A vague purpose is commonly cherished of 
resuming it again under more favorable auspices, when tempt- 
ations shall be fewer or weaker, and better helps available. 
But for the present they put off Christ, and get their educa- 
tion and form their character without Him, seeming to re 
gard themselves more free than before to indulge in doubtful 



CliltlSTIAN YOUNG MEN. 157 

pleasures and associations, and still more to omit the distinct- 
ive duties and manifestations of a Christian profession. If 
conscience at first interpose some obstacles in the way of such 
a defection, it soon accommodates itself with a vicious facil- 
ity to the cherished inclinations of the heart. 

1 have often seen a hopefully pious youth thus throw away 
his armor in the day of battle, putting off Christ just when 
he most needs to put him on — entering on a career of many 
dangers without religion, just because he thinks it will be 
difficult or unpleasant to get along with religion. He thus 
fairly uncovers his bosom to the envenomed shaft. He in- 
vites, yea, compels God to forsake him, and then rushes blind 
and naked into the midst of his foes. I speak, young gentle- 
men, of an experience not unknown among you — not to re- 
proach, but to warn. Some may have gone so far in this 
downward career, and have drunken so deeply of the cup of 
cursing which they have chosen, that the voice of affection- 
ate admonition will be lost upon them. Not so, I trust, with 
others who hear me. The agony is not yet over with them. 
Shamefully have they slighted, deeply have they grieved 
the Savior ; but their hearts yet beat quicldy and sorrow- 
fully when they look upon Him whom they have pierced. 
You who have made a trial of this style in religion, say, Is 
it satisfactory ? Does it shield you in the day of peril? The 
enjoyments, the lusts of the flesh, for which you have pro- 
vided at such enormous expense, are they, upon the whole, 
better than the peace of God and the love of Christ which 
you have lost ? If you look back with desire and self-re- 
proach, then you have still a taste and a conscience for bet- 
ter things, and may, I trust will, rally and struggle to regain 
the position you have rashly abandoned. 

Those who are about to leave this arena of preparation to 
enter upon new scenes of life, and engage in fresh enterprises, 
I beseech to listen to the instructions' of this occasion. Do 
not venture to take a step into this dark, troublesome world, 



158 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OP 

now opening before you, without a divine guide. You I may 
exhort with special emphasis, " Put ye on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the 
lusts thereof." Fear to move in the grave matter of choos- 
ing your profession, and forming the more permanent plans 
and relations of life, before you assume your proper religious 
position, and are thus enabled to act under divine direction. 
You may not neglect this duty without incurring the entire . 
forfeiture of God's promises and grace. Let me inquire of 
you, with an earnestness and solemnity befitting the import- 
ance of the interests involved, whether you have hitherto been 
true to your convictions of duty — whether your plans of life 
have thus far been formed prayerfully and conscientiously, 
in the best moods of your religious feelings, when you most 
fully appreciated Christ's supreme claims ? Are there not 
in your bosoms half-stifled convictions, slumbering recollec- 
tions of unpaid vows, made under circumstances of deepest so- 
lemnity ? Look over these archives of conscience with heed- 
ful deliberation. Resolutions, formed when your bosoms glow- 
ed with zeal and love for Christ, are most likely to be the 
wisest and the best. Bring yourselves back to the same mor- 
al attitude, and review these high, holy purposes, under the 
same clear manifestations that led to their formation, or you 
are likely to sin against your own souls irretrievably. "Put 
ye on the Lord Jesus Christ," and then choose your way un- 
der his divine auspices. See to it that you make no provision 
for the flesh in this deeply interesting crisis of your endless 
being. For God's sake do not blunder here. Jlemember 
you choose for eternity, and that an error at this point must 
give a wrong direction to all your future career. You de- 
termine what you will do for Christ, and for men, and for 
your own souls. Choose honestly ; choose bravely ; fearing 
no labors, or crosses, or sufferings. Better far than honors or 
crowns are the sacrifices which fidelity to Christ shall impose 
upon you. 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 159 

There is among our educated Christian young men a griev- 
ous offense, so common as to have hecome a sign of the times, 
and so full of evil tendencies as to call loudly for exposure and 
denunciation. I refer to the levity with which so many treat 
their early vows of consecration to the Christian ministry. 
Under convictions of duty and of a heavenly calling, always 
deeply felt and gratefully recognized in seasons of high re- 
ligious enjoyment and spiritual devotion, they begin or pros- 
ecute their literary career as a preparatory training for the 
sacred office. With seasons oWepression or declension come 
doubts, and reluctance, and dissatisfaction with plans of life 
which really present few alluring aspects to the lukewarm, 
worldly-minded Christian. Such occasions are often chosen 
for testing the validity of the call to a work involving many 
sacrifices, and for which high spirituality and entire conse- 
cration to Christ are confessedly indispensable qualifications. 
It is then no difficult task to discover deficiencies which the 
least sensitive conscience must feel, and which there is even 
a strong temptation to magnify as the means of obtaining a 
release from obligations hitherto deemed sacred and inviola- 
ble. I have briefly indicated the process by which many of 
our Christian students, designated for the ministry by the 
most unequivocal marks of a divine vocation, contrive to stifle 
their own convictions, and elude the sacred claims of the 
Church and of the crucified Savior. I can truly affirm that 
no other instances of religious defection and recreancy to sa- 
cred duties are wont to fill me with a sorrow so profound and 
inconsolable. I habitually look upon pious students with the 
deepest interest, as in a peculiar sense the property of Christ, 
not only as the purchase of his blood and the trophies of grace, 
but as the probable and fit instruments to be chosen for the 
enlargement of his kingdom. It is to be expected that many 
so providentially prepared by literary training should be di- 
vinely called to the ministry of reconciliation ; and it is mat- 
ter of unfeigned thankfulness, but none of surprise, that so 



160 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF 

large a proportion of converted students become deeply im- 
pressed with the duty of devoting themselves to this great 
work. Few, I believe, who maintain a devotional, cross- 
bearing spirit, ever fall into serious or lasting doubts about 
the authenticity of their heavenly calling. They may be 
permitted to pass through seasons of trial and self-examina 
tion for the establishment of their faith, and for the attain- 
ment of a higher moral preparation for the exigencies of their 
holy vocation ; but few sincere souls, I am persuaded, will 
ever be left to discard, as the result of fancy or of enthusiasm, 
these awful impressions of the highest duty. 

They who have been seduced by ambition, or indolence, or 
unbelief, or self-indulgence, from the higher walks of piety, 
do, indeed, bring upon themselves a moral state to which dis- 
trust, and distaste, and absolute repugnance, in regard to their 
proper mission, are natural and unavoidable. They are no 
longer fit to be ministers of Christ ; but this does not annul 
their call nor its binding obligations. The burden rests upon 
them none the less because the strength to bear it is gone. 
They have clearly fallen into the snare of the devil, and 
there is only one way of escape. They must revert to first 
principles, or be irretrievably ruined. They must return to 
their first love — must revisit the sunny regions of* Divine 
grace and manifestation, where clear convictions and holy 
aspirations domineer over the soul — where love, and faith, 
and joy in the Holy Ghost impart strength to sustain and 
light to guide. There is really no other alternative besides 
such a spiritual revival, for any who lack the nerve to con- 
clude that they can get along, in life and in death, without 
a Savior. To keep this an open question, with some latent 
floating purpose to take advantage of a day of feeble im- 
pulses and dim manifestation for sliding away into a secular 
profession, is to impose upon the mind and the heart an in 
tolerable burden, the ominous pledge of comfortless progress, 
and of ultimate shameful discomfiture. The interests of both 



CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 161 

worlds are equally concerned in such a choice of occupation 
as shall leave the conscience free to approve, and God free 
to patronize. 

To those who ajje rather timid than rebellious, and have 
still a stronger desire to win the crown than dread of bear- 
ing the cross, it may be right to point out the vast resources 
placed at their disposal, and of which they receive the invest- 
iture on assuming their true position ; but it must, after all, 
be admitted to be the mark of a degraded moral tone for a 
Christian man to manifest much anxiety for any thing be- 
yond the doing of his duty. It has been well said that events 
belong to God ; and, it may be added, that we are likely to be 
made happier, as well as better and abler men, by every en- 
counter with difficulties and every blast of adversity. These 
are God's chosen methods of discipline, and His appointed con- 
ditions of all eminent success. So true is this, even in com- 
mon life, that we do not hesitate to pronounce the most un- 
favorable auguries of an educated young man, who, in his 
plans of life, makes an over-careful provision for self-indul- 
gence, and an exemption from severe toils and trials. If he 
will not push from the shore till he has taken pledges for a 
smooth sea and a favorable breeze — if he must, at all events, 
have sumptuous fare, and fine linen, and houses of cedar, he 
insists on conditions which neither Heaven nor earth will 
grant, and which are wholly incompatible with the perform- 
ance of great actions, or the formation of great characters. 
In religion, this timid, selfish spirit, to whatever extent it 
may exist, is subversive of the best principles of the Gospel. 
It is utterly incompatible with faith, and in itself a mortal 
sin. We may not inquire too anxiously what Christ will de- 
mand of us in return for the blood He has shed and the heav- 
en He has prepared for us ; but we know He will have noth- 
ing less than entire consecration, and that we are to be 
ever ready, " not only to be bound, but also to die for the 
name of the Lord Jesus." It is precisely at this point of en- 



162 EESOUK.CES AND DUTIES, ETC. 

tire self-renunciation that the soul becomes endowed with the 
power of an endless life, and can do all things through Christ. 
If this is an excellent attainment, usually reserved for ad- 
vanced piety and matured graces, it may, nevertheless, be 
come the starting-point of every Christian young man. Let 
him put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for 
the flesh, and he obtains the mastery over all resources, hu- 
man and divine, needful to the fulfillment of a glorious des- 
tiny 



CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE, ETC. 163 



III. 

THE RELATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE TO MENTAL 
CULTURE. 

A DISCOURSE TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE WESLEYAN 
UNIVERSITY. 1848. 

As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. — Prov., xxiii., 7. 

It is a recognized principle of ethical philosophy, no less 
than of the Gospel, that the quality of actions, considered as 
virtuous or vicious, resides wholly in the intention. The ex- 
ternal bodily movement, which we term the action, and 
which is the apparent cause of the effect produced, has real- 
ly no moral character. It is neither good nor evil in itself; 
and in forming our judgment of human conduct, we might 
reject the external manifestation altogether, had we some 
other clew to the mental condition of which it is the expo- 
nent. But "the tree is known by its fruit." It is by atten- 
tively observing the actions of men that we are enabled to 
arrive at satisfactory conclusions concerning their intention?, 
which alone are deserving of either praise or blame. " As 
he thinketh in his heart, so is he." He may be a thorough- 
ly good man — "pure in heart," just in the sight of God ; and 
yet, through some fault of his position, or some negligence, or 
some untowardness in his methods of manifestation, he may 
impress the beholder unfavorably — may incur a most unde- 
sirable reputation. He may, on the contrary, studiously main- 
tain all the decencies and semblances of many virtues ; may, 
for sinister or selfish ends, perform good deeds, rivaling in 
their number and usefulness the highest achievements of the 
most approved and unquestionable piety, without making the 



164 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

slightest approach toward the fulfillment of his duties as a 
moral being : " As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." Out- 
ward performances are of no worth apart from the motives 
in which they originate. The same overt act is either a 
virtue or a crime, according to the intention of the agent. 
Several men bestow money upon a poor neighbor : the first 
gives it as the price of waylaying an enemy ; the second, to 
purchase a vote ; the third, to relieve pressing want ; the last, 
as the steward and dispenser of God's bounty intrusted to him. 
This one act of giving to the poor is so modified by motives 
as to be in the first instance an atrocious crime ; in the sec- 
ond, gross profligacy ; in the third, an act of charity ; in the 
fourth, a deed of Christian piety. So true is it of every man,- 
in regard to every act of his life, that he is as his intentions 
are : motive, not performance, determines moral character. 

The same maxim is true when applied to intellectual char- 
acter : " As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." The human 
mind is as the thoughts with which it is chiefly conversant. 
It is very much the creature of its own ideas. The man 
who from early life has been familiar with topics and inter- 
ests of great significance, is educated by them. His intellect 
takes its character and coloring from the ideas which habit- 
ually act upon it and dwell in it. Even the sights and sounds 
that engage his outward senses — the beautiful landscape, or 
the sublime mountain scenery upon which he has long been 
accustomed to gaze ; the roar of the cataract, which sends 
forth its thunder night and day near his dwelling-place — 
will by-and-by be found to have filled the imagination and 
the memory with images and recollections, and the heart 
with sentiments, which are likely to exert a strong and per- 
manent influence upon his mental capacity, upon his char- 
acter, and his destiny. Still more must every-day pursuits, 
and the profound interests that suggest the current topics of 
conversation and thought, and that impose upon the mind its 
most stirring, strenuous employments, leave upon it durable 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 165 

impressions, and become chief and influential conditions of 
its development and growth. If two individuals, equal in 
capacity and education, spend their lives in a great indus- 
trial establishment, the one as owner or superintendent, the 
other as a common laborer, the master is likely to become a 
man of decided ability, of comprehensive views, inventive 
genius, and sound judgment, while the operative makes no 
progress beyond the acquisition of some degree of skill in his 
own special department. The first has a variety of interests 
to consult, and responsibilities to meet ; has questions to set- 
tle, and decisions to make every day or hour, upon which are 
suspended results of no inconsiderable moment. This gives 
variety, multiplicity, and activity to his ideas, and the mind 
expands and acquires new vigor by such processes. The 
work of the subaltern, on the contrary, is mere routine, and 
his mind stagnates and dwindles amid the incessant monot- 
onous whirling of spindles and water-wheels. 

It is no unusual thing for travelers in Turkey and other Ori- 
ental states to meet with high public functionaries totally ig- 
norant of all the arts and sciences, a knowledge of which, in 
our part of the world, constitutes education. Many of them, 
however, are men of decided ability, who discharge the duties 
of their high stations with the utmost propriety. The most 
sagacious and successful ruler in the East knows nothing of 
literature and science beyond the poorest skill in reading and 
writing, and this he acquired after his elevation to supreme 
power, at forty years of age. These men are educated by 
the important, responsible employments which give constant 
play to their intellectual faculties, and enlarge the mind by 
habitual familiarity with significant ideas. That is likely to 
become the most powerful intellect which is most constantly 
and earnestly busied with great thoughts and great designs. 
Every religious congregation affords good illustration of this 
truth. "We never fail to observe a higher tone of intelligence 
as well as piety among a people accustomed to contemplate 



166 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

and devise extensive schemes for doing good, not at home 
merely, but in distant lands and in the islands of the sea, than 
prevails, or ean prevail, in the old stereotyped churches, which 
are well content if they can only take care of themselves. The 
mind wants an ample supply of worthy ideas to furnish it 
with interesting, productive occupation. "With these it must 
make progress and attain development ; but without them, 
never. This truth is important, not to students only, but to 
all who desire mental growth and discipline. It is especial- 
ly, important for those who labor at occupations little friend- 
ly to intellectual improvement. Such persons should seek a 
remedy for the disadvantage of their position by reading good 
books, which are the great store-houses of ideas and thoughts, 
and which offer a ready and sufficient resource. 

I but draw a legitimate inference from the preceding dis- 
cussion, and announce the obvious truth of the text in another 
form, in affirming that the moral character of a man is as 
his principles — that it is not only colored and modified, but 
formed by his principles, or the theory according to which 
his life is conducted. As each separate action derives its 
quality from the motive in which it originates, so the series 
of actions which constitutes the history of an individual is 
as the succession of motives from which they proceed, or as 
the moral principles, which in every well-balanced mind con- 
stitute the great source and regulator of motives. 

By a similar train of reasoning, it will be made obvious 
that the mental character must, to a great extent, be the re- 
sult of the theory on which the individual resolves to conduct 
his life. If the mind at any given time receives its impulses, 
its elevation, and its tendencies from the particular ideas upon 
which it is employed, its general character must, to a great 
extent, be not only affected, but formed by that unbroken 
succession of ideas with which it is conversant, the most in- 
fluential and important of which are derived from those pro- 
found convictions and stable purposes usually denominated 



RELATION TO MENTAL, CULTURE. 167 

the principles. Dismissing these too metaphysical forms of 
expression, into which I have been led in quest of clearness 
and precision, it may be stated in general terms, that a man's 
moral and intellectual character are as " he thinketh in his 
heart" — are as those deep and earnest thoughts which con- 
stitute the moving forces of the soul, and which regulate the 
life. 

I think we may now regard the doctrine of , the text as 
sufficiently elucidated. It strikes me much like a self-evi- 
dent proposition, the announcement of which brings with it 
the clearest conviction of its truth. It falls in with every 
man's experience and every man's observation — with the na- 
ture of things and the Word of God ; and we may now feel 
at liberty to proceed with some inferences and applications 
of a practical character, adapted to the special demands of 
this occasion. I will subjoin but one more preliminary re- 
mark. If it shall seem to any that I lose sight of the differ- 
ences between moral and intellectual objects, and confound 
ideas logically and really distinct, I refer them to the fur- 
ther developments of this discourse, for the justification of a 
method deliberately adopted from a strong conviction that 
every just theory of intellectual training must recognize a 
dependence nearly absolute upon moral principles. 

I. It is a natural and obvious inference from the preced- 
ing discussion, that every man, and especially every educated 
young man, should furnish himself, as early as may be, with 
enlightened, stable principles of action. He should set out 
in the world with a well-considered and earnestly adopted 
theory of life, in obedience to whose controlling authority his 
ends shall be chosen and his efforts prosecuted. To engage 
in a career involving consequences profoundly interesting in 
themselves, and eternal in their duration and influence, with- 
out settled principles and aims, is like setting sail upon the 
broad ocean with no specific destination ; and, consequently, 
with no reason for choosing one direction rather than another, 



168 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

but such as capricious gales or more capricious fancies may 
from time to time happen to supply. Nothing less than dis- 
comfiture and disaster can be expected from such a begin- 
ning. It is, indeed, among things possible, that propitious 
breezes may waft the unpiloted bark into some desirable 
haven ; and even that the fury of the storm may drive the 
floating wreck upon some green or some golden shore, where 
reckless adventure may gather rewards never due, and sel- 
dom granted to any thing but prudent foresight, and well- 
directed, persevering effort. He is little better than a mad- 
man, however, who voluntarily consents to expose the most 
precious interests of his being to a conflict of chances hi which 
the highest perils are always imminent, and absolute ruin 
nearly miavoidable ; while success, if it come as the result 
of fortuitous causes and combinations, is likely to be nearly 
valueless, because not foreseen and provided for. That course 
of life which is entered upon without principle, and conduct- 
ed without a plan, can not but be unproductive of either vir- 
tue, happiness, or honor. That it is not wholly filled up 
with misfortunes and disgraces, and rendered to the victim 
of his own follies one unvaried scene of wretchedness, results 
from the benignant arrangements of divine Providence, which 
always protect the imprudent and the vicious against many 
of the consequences of their misconduct, and secure to all 
such a measure of enjoyment as shall make life tolerable, 
even to the most unfortunate, and awaken gratitude in the 
midst of disappointment and shame. 

For those who will not be at the trouble of subjecting them- 
selves to the control of principle and duty, it is fortunate to 
be left in the walks of common, laborious life, where, in the 
absence of the higher motives which reason and religion sup- 
ply, domestic instincts and urgent wants are ever at hand to 
minister their stern impulses to energetic, perseverrng activ- 
ity. The great law of necessity, which prescribes to the 
multitude their toilsome course of life, is faithful to exact 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 169 

the fulfillment of its duties ; but for those whom fortune or 
parental indulgence, or their own honorable aspirations, al- 
low to choose a higher career, no such safeguard is provided. 
They must find incentives to action, and guarantees of suc- 
cess, in their own enlightened reason and virtuous resolution. 
For them to engage in the elevating pursuits which invite 
their presence, without the moral and mental prerequisites 
to success, is to incur necessary, unavoidable disasters. In 
the absence of established principles of action, their effort;* 
will be feeble and fitful. The long labor of preparation will 
be but a heartless, profitless task, from which feeble tempta- 
tions and worthless pleasures will ever be sufficient to draw 
away the wavering, irresolute disciple. Every folly which 
holds out the promise of stimulating excitement or vulgar 
merriment — every vice which has a gilded bait to offer, has 
its eye upon him as a predestined victim. Destitute of any 
sound principle of action, and therefore without purpose or 
earnestness, he floats a waif upon a sea of accidents — he 
stands idle in the market-place, a laborer out of work, la- 
beled and advertised as a candidate for any and every adven- 
ture. I do not hesitate to announce it as my deliberate opin- 
ion, that most of the miscarriages of scholastic life are the 
result of the causes here discussed. Not a few young men 
enter upon this career without settled principles or purposes. 
They are conscious of no aims. They know not why they 
are in a college rather than in a factory or a corn-field. It 
is no manly, vigorous purpose ; no lofty aspiration ; no burn- 
ing zeal for God's glory, or human well-being, that has 
brought them here. Such motives dignify and consecrate 
the student's vocation ; they hallow all his hours and oppor- 
tunities ; they exalt industry and sobriety, and punctuality 
and order, into cardinal virtues ; they fortify the soul with 
sturdy resolution, and stir it with sleepless impulses ; they 
set it all a-blaze with scholarly enthusiasm, and lead on even 
ordinary men, by no means highly gifted, to the attainment 

H 



170 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

of an intellectual and moral efficiency very like genius The 
pursuit of knowledge under such benignant auspices can nev- 
er be an irksome task. It rather becomes a mission in ful- 
fillment of which the student works on consciously and ge- 
nially, growing every day more and more a man, fit to beat 
God's image in the world, and to act the part of a brother 
and a benefactor in the great suffering family of which he is 
one. 

Students of the other class, and I must admit that it does 
not every where lack the respectability of numbers, find col- 
lege work, so far as they do it, mere drudgery. They taste 
none of the pleasures of science, and they reap none of the 
higher advantages of education, for these are gained by vol- 
untary, earnest co-operation with the sources of information 
and the appliances which literary institutions profess to sup- 
ply. Something, no doubt, may be gained to taste and gen- 
eral intelligence by breathing a literary atmosphere, and by 
a half involuntary subjection to the processes of the study and 
the lecture-room ; and if it shall turn out that the literary 
idler inhales somewhat more of the vital principle than he 
gives out of noxious effluvia for the lungs of others, then 
there may be advantage in the experiment. But against 
these benefits, however highly they may be rated, there is to 
be taken into our account the offset of many fearful evils lia- 
ble to be suffered and inflicted. The mind, without a guid- 
ing principle or reeognized vocation, if it be not neutralized 
and wasted by its own feeble, misdirected, conflicting tend- 
encies, will hardly escape a corrupting thraldom from "the 
accidental or malicious influences to which it is exposed. 
Refusing its homage to the right and the true, and so spurn- 
ing the protection of practical virtue, it becomes an easy pxey 
to unsuspected enemies. Other minds, as empty and listless 
as itself, or the weakest combination of accidents, impose law 
upon him who will not choose to be his own master. The 
poor jests that fall from the idler or wag who sits by his side 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 171 

at the dinner-table or in the lecture-room, or the current non- 
sense of the clique whom chance, or some more formal bond 
of union, has made his chosen associates, fashion his senti- 
ments, and become chief agents in the formation of his mental 
and moral habits.* These appoint his aims, and pronounce ex 

* The literary fraternities, of late so greatly multiplied in our col- 
leges, exert a very important influence upon the formation of both men- 
tal and moral character. They have gradually introduced into these 
institutions a new element, very worthy of attention, whether consid- 
ered in connection with the maintenance of sound discipline and good 
order, or with literary improvement. Twenty years ago the students 
of a college usually formed two associations, for the purpose of mutual 
improvement in composition and oratory. Two hours in some after- 
noon or evening of each week were set apart by the authority, or with 
the consent of the faculty, for these exercises, which were conducted 
sometimes secretly, but more commonly with some degree of publicity, 
under such rules and regulations as were agreed upon for the orderly 
transaction of business. These societies, though liable to abuses, often 
contributed in a considerable degree to the improvement of the student. 
Some skill and facility in extemporaneous speaking were acquired, for 
which the ordinary routine of college life affords less favorable oppor- 
tunities. A spirit of inquiry and emulation was awakened ; informa- 
tion was elicited ; the timid were encouraged to take part in exercises 
prescribed with their consent, and presided over by their associates ; 
and the general freedom and wide scope, as well as the method of the 
discussion, were calculated to introduce into the scholastic arena some- 
thing of the "earnestness and reality of the actual business of life, for 
which it constituted, to some extent, a useful preparation. The draw- 
backs upon these benefits were often party spirit, rivalries, jealousies, 
and suspicions ; a loose and vapid style of speaking and writing, con- 
tracted in the absence of proper instruction and judicious criticism ; and 
sometimes an undervaluing of the prescribed studies and duties which 
constitute the student's proper business. 

In addition to the two or three associations, which usually embraced 
the whole body of students, we now have from five or six to a dozen 
secre; societies, aiming at similar objects with the old fraternities, and 
secunng them in various degrees. Some special benefits are probably 
gained by this minute subdivision, in the closer intimacies and by the 
freer play of confidence and sympathy which it allows. 

Of the disadvantages which may grow out of this innovation I only 



172 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

cathedra judgments more authoritative than university stat» 
utes, or the counsel of the most judicious instructors. In 

speak theoretically, as the excellent tone of moral sentiment which has 
usually prevailed in the Wesleyan University is calculated to counter- 
act any unfavorable tendencies in the casual associations of the students. 
The additional expenditure of money and time is a practical and obvi- 
ous objection of considerable weight, though slight in comparison with 
any injurious influences on mental and moral culture which may pos- 
sibly result from the cause under consideration. The inconsiderable 
numbers of which these societies, now so greatly multiplied, must con- 
sist, would seem to be less favorable to improvement than larger asso- 
ciations, from lack of stimulus, and the want of an audience ; from the 
narrow sphere of comparison ; and from the little variety of talent and 
attainment presented, whether to awaken emulation or to supply mod- 
els. It is an easy achievement to shine and win applause in a circle 
of half a dozen students, drawn together, it may be, by the common 
bond of mediocrity in mind and scholarship, while intellectual exhibi- 
tions in the presence of fifty or a hundred intelligent young men have 
another sort of ordeal to pass. In the larger association we should al- 
ways expect some examples of fine taste, sound reasoning, and good 
speaking, well calculated to awaken and guide a manly ambition to 
excel. The closer intimacy and stronger ties of the smaller fraterni- 
ties must also tend to impair the strength, or prevent the existence of 
the esprit du corps of the class and the institution, which constitutes 
one of the most delightful, enduring, and valuable satisfactions and rem- 
iniscences of college life. It will be found, I think, except under the 
most favorable circumstances, that the multiplication of these fraterni- 
ties tends to excite groundless suspicions, to alienate friends, and pre- 
vent the formation of friendships between congenial minds. Even re- 
ligious ties and sympathies are not always able to resist an influence 
which may sometimes degrade literary associations into the bigotry, 
selfishness, and pettiness of a clique. In a state of morals and senti- 
ments less favorable than that with which I have the good fortune to 
be most conversant, the unreasonable and eager strife of small associa- 
tions might produce great difficulties in the government of a literary 
institution. I am, however, bound in justice to add, that no such evils 
have fallen under my notice ; and that instances have come to my 
knowledge in which the right feeling and self-respect of the fraternity 
have rendered valuable aid to the cause of good order, and done much 
to restrain an erring member from indolence, vice, and dishonor. 
Not to make any further use of the foregoing suggestions, they should 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 173 

obedience to such oracles it is that green, unfurnished youths 
resolve that the real hinderances to mental improvement and 
to the development of genius are hard study and solid science ; 
and that some light reading and vapid declamation — above 
all, the edifying discourses and flashy criticisms of the coterie, 
are able to form them great orators, and, if they like, great 
authors and statesmen. Let it not be imagined that these 
are mere idle fancies, which disappear with the hour that 
gives them birth. If they take the guise of very palpable 

inspire the student with great caution in his selection among the vari- 
ous societies which invite hiin to their fellowship on his entrance upon 
college life. He should, at least, take time to consider, and become 
acquainted. He should be cautious that he does not commit the keep- 
ing of his comfort, his scholarship, his principles, his manners and mor- 
als, to associates whose bond of union may be their community of idle 
habits, vulgar tastes, and conversation ; of low scholarship, and loose 
or irreligious principles ; and a common aversion to certain laborious 
studies and duties prescribed in the college course. The societies them- 
selves ought to be ever on their guard against the dangers and abuses 
to which, however outweighed by advantages, they are unavoidably 
exposed ; to maintain a spirit of generous, honorable, not of petty, sus- 
picious rivalry, toward their confraternities. They should watch over 
the conduct of their members with brotherly kindness and solicitude, 
and seek to promote in them scholarly, gentlemanly, and manly habits 
and aspirations. It should ever be a first principle with them to pros- 
ecute their laudable objects in strict subordination to their higher du- 
ties as members of a public institution, and in a frank and ingenuous, 
and honorable spirit toward its administration and government. Even 
those slight infractions of law and order which may be deemed venial 
in an inexperienced individual, ought to be esteemed disgraceful in a 
society of intelligent young gentlemen, which is presumed to be ani- 
mated and guided by the combined discretion, and honor, and con 
science of all its members. Associations of students, judiciously con 
ducted in accordance with the principles here suggested — devoting 
themselves, not to trivial, but to significant, earnest, manly discussions 
and inquiries ; always kept in harmony with the higher duties and ob- 
jects of college life ; and, I will add, never allowed to interfere with 
due attention to the public societies, or to introduce into them any of 
the petty rivalries of the minor fraternities — may become very useful 
aids to intellectual culture. 



174 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

absurdities when exposed in their true point of view, they 
very often present themselves upon the theatre of practical 
education as real, insuperable obstacles in the way of all im- 
provement. They often render attendance on college terms 
and college exercises nearly useless to the pupil, and the 
teacher's office a laborious, vexatious nullity. All good in- 
fluences are lost upon such purposeless, wayward, obstinate 
minds. The accidents to which they surrender the conduct 
of their intellect and their lives, may, indeed, by rare good 
fortune, impress upon them some form of intelligence and 
virtue. Some higher, purer current of the fickle winds to 
which they commit their course, may chance to harden into 
habits not wholly detestable., some of the transient phases 
exhibited in the ever-varying phenomena of their mental 
progress. Still it would be idle to expect satisfactory results 
from causes so inadequate, and methods so utterly unsound. 
Success will be the rare exception — failure the rule. I re- 
peat the opinion already expressed, that here is to be found 
the source of the manifold grievous disappointments which 
so often fall to the lot of so-called educated men. There is 
no reason, in the nature of things, why one third of college- 
bred young men should prove unfit for the professions for 
which liberal education is designed to prepare them, while 
nineteen in twenty of all who are apprenticed to mechanics 
and artisans turn out complete workmen. "We do not demand 
that all educated men shall prove to be geniuses, or shall at- 
tain to the highest professional distinction. All, however, 
not essentially deficient in ordinary mental endowments, are 
capable of gaining the mental discipline which it is the busi- 
ness of schools and colleges to impart, and which is requisite 
in the functions to the fulfillment of which society calls its 
educated men. The thing most requisite to success in these 
vocations is not brilliant talent, but the due preparation and 
use of those average capacities which God bestows impar- 
tially upon the race. These can only be secured by diligent, 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 175 

persevering study, pursued upon a plan and upon principle ; 
and it is because so large a class of students, so-called, have 
neither principle nor plan, that so many of them fall out by 
the way, and so many others, who manage to pass through 
college, are destined to a life of mortification and disappoint- 
ment. 

II. I pass on to another remark. Since established prin- 
ciples of action are so essential to success, %ve ought to use 
great caution in the adoption of our 'principles, for ail are 
not equally good. 

It must be admitted that any effective principle of action, 
not absolutely vicious, is better than none. Action upon low 
and adulterated motives is preferable to the intellectual 
stagnation which results from a want of strong impulses, and 
earnest, stable purpose. It is better to be driven furiously 
over rocks and shoals by Borean gales, than to reel and 
swelter, and take the plague in the calms of the torrid zone. 
Still, it is a matter of great moment to commence and prose- 
cute our plans of life on an elevating and genial theory, for 
in it both moral and mental character are deeply involved. 

Many young men choose a literary and professional career 
in preference to more active and laborious pursuits, from a 
deliberate comparison of the advantages which each is sup- 
posed to offer. They resolve to escape from the plow and 
the work-shop, because they are disgusted with mere manual 
labor, and fancy that they feel within them the presence of 
mental aptitudes, which, with due culture, may raise them 
to ease or affluence. It can not be denied that such persons 
have chosen for themselves a principle of action of great po- 
tency, which may stimulate to persevering industry, and even 
high enterprise. It is a motive of sufficient efficiency to in- 
sure stability of purpose and of action, and may, with great 
probability, lead on to thorough scholarship and professional 
eminence. It even offers guarantees for correct morals, as 
well as for mental improvement ; for they who are earnest- 



176 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

ly engaged in serious occupations, have seldom leisure or in- 
clination for vice and dissipation. . Self-interest, however, 
though a highly efficient, and, in the ahsence of better, a 
very useful motive, can not be regarded a worthy principle of 
action for an intelligent moral being. It is not good, in the 
long run, either for the intellect or the heart. In its higher 
developments it is philosophically incompatible with the act- 
ive existence of several of the most valuable sentiments and 
virtues that enrich and adorn the human character. It can 
not, for instance, coexist with magnanimity, or benevolence, 
or generosity, or public spirit. When fairly enthroned as the 
rule of life, it gradually, but inevitably, loses all kind consid- 
eration for the welfare of others, or for any interest that can 
not be made subservient to individual aggrandizement ; and 
then it is that we clearly perceive its malignant character. 
Now this is the point to which it perpetually tends ; and 
that must be pronounced a vicious principle of action which, 
however useful in special circumstances, becomes intolerable 
the moment it obtains a full development. Our motives of 
action, in order to achieve the utmost for character, should 
be such as gain Hew force and momentum with our progress 
in wisdom and viru^e ; but the motive in question just then 
grows into a manifest, monstrous evil, fatal alike to virtue, 
and piety, and happiness. 

Its influence upon the intellectual character is scarcely less 
disastrous than upon the moral. The mind which was well 
disciplined under the impulses of a principle of so much en- 
ergy, and so sagacious, soon finds itself shut in from all en- 
largement by a system, of which self, and not man, nor the 
universe, nor God, is the centre. The heart becomes hard, 
and the conscience seared, in their perpetual conflicts with 
the claims of sympathy and charity ; and this is equivalent 
to affirming that all the fountains of genial sentiment are 
congealed into ice, or indurated into stone. Insensibility to 
the interests of others is confessedly fatal to all true, per- 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 177 

suasive eloquence. As the selfish man, sooner or later, be- 
comes an object of indifference or detestation to the world, 
he can never secure the reputation and the influenza needful 
to move or control other minds. He can no more be a poet 
than an orator, for he does not love or reverence nature, or 
man, or God. Nor do I see how he can possibly be a philos- 
opher; how he can attain to the love of truth, except for the 
gain it may bring him ; how he can have a heart to appre- 
ciate great discoveries in the earth or the heavens, in any 
higher spirit than that which rejoices in the acquisition of 
the precious gem accidentally brought to light in geological 
researches, or in the glitter and costliness of the instruments 
with which science prosecutes its inquiries. 

It would, perhaps, be unjust to liberally educated men, and 
yet more to the youthful student, to intimate that selfish mo- 
tives operate upon them Avith peculiar force. He has prob- 
ably surrendered himself to the dominion of more honorable 
sentiments : he has chosen ambition as his guiding star, and 
spends the midnight oil amid visions of future renown. I 
believe that ambition does operate much more frequently 
and powerfully upon intelligent young men than self-inter- 
est ; and I gladly admit that it is a far more elevated and 
honorable principle of action. It emancipates the aspiring 
mind from a degrading bondage to those material interests 
which turn away its vision from all things genial and enno- 
bling, and concentrate upon self the expansive sympathies 
that were meant for mankind. By presenting reputation and 
influence as the most desirable objects of pursuit, it prescribes 
the cultivation of such virtues and accomplishments as ren- 
der a man agreeable to his fellows, and so far provides for 
the interest and happiness of the species. Scope is thus given 
for some exercise of the charities of our nature, and for some 
degree of the virtues of patriotism and public spirit ; an ad- 
vantage which raises ambition immeasurably above mere 
gross selfishness as a motive for mental culture. That rule 

H £ 



178 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

of life, however, is essentially defective and faulty whiclr pro- 
poses public favor and applause as a motive for the acqui- 
sition of knowledge or the cultivation of virtue. They who 
follow it seldom become either wise or virtuous ; for they 
will soon discover that superficial attainments, and the sem- 
blances of virtue, are more easy, and not less sure passports 
to popularity, than the realities of which they are the cheap 
substitutes and gaudy counterfeits. Knowledge and virtue 
come to be regarded only as means, less valuable and less 
desirable than the ends they are used to promote ; and they 
will be abandoned without scruple for other expedients found 
to be of equal or greater efficacy. Thus degraded to the level 
of mere instruments, they lose their moral character, and, 
with it, their reflex power over the mind and tie heart. It 
is thus that ambition, which, at the outset, frequently exerts 
a powerful and conservative influence upon the student, be- 
comes, after no great length of time, a thoroughly misleading- 
element, hostile alike to intellectual and moral advancement. 
This is its inherent vice, which must operate with greater 
or less force, even in the study, and throughout the forming 
period of life. In the turmoil of riper years, and amid the 
temptations of a public career, its sway often becomes abso- 
lute, and not many are found able to resist its deteriorating 
influences. Indeed, ambition finds little indulgence, even in 
the judgment of the world. We too incautiously, perhaps, 
laud an ambitious student ; but to apply this epithet to a 
man of mature years, to a statesman, or an aspirant for of- 
fice, is equivalent to pronouncing him unworthy of public 
confidence. Ambition is like self-interest in this, that it 
ministers useful impulses in the preparatory stages of life, 
and in the absence of strong temptations ; but it eventually 
undermines the character, and seduces both the intellect and 
the heart. When once the ambitious scholar has become an 
ambitious politician, there is commonly an end to all men- 
tal and moral improvement. Tact and demagogism answer 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 179 

his new aims far better than divine philosophy ; and he has 
entered a region of temptation too strong for ordinary virtue. 
Party arrangements and obligations are not long in weaving 
their meshes for the conscience, which soon learns submis- 
sion to the code of morality that prefers the popular and the 
politic to the true and the right. A thousand sad histories, 
fulfilled and fulfilling among us, will tell, without more ar- 
gument, by what sure, though it may be slow, gradations the 
ingenuous, studious youth of twenty-one is led on by this ig- 
nis fatuus to be, at forty, an unprincipled, time-serving dem- 
agogue, without principle, reputation, or honorable aspirations. 
Let every young man beware of surrendering himself to the 
leading of unchastened ambition. Let him shun, as the gates 
of death, the arena of partisan strife and preferment. Let 
him patiently seek, in some honest calling, independence of 
all parties and offices. It may be that intelligence and vir- 
tue will be wanted some day on the political stage, and he 
may then ascend it with clean hands and a good conscience, 
and with the full advantage of all the wisdom and reputa- 
tion with which he has fortified his character in the inno- 
cence of private life. 

There is still another motive to literary activity, liable to 
none of the objections here referred to, which deserves more 
attention than it has yet received in our places of education. 
Could we hope to find a considerable number of youths so 
happily constituted that the love of learning would prove a 
sufficient stimulus to diligent, persevering application, we 
should have discovered an incentive to action which the most 
scrupulous morality could not hesitate to approve. It is a 
delightful thought, that of an ingenuous young man led on 
through the schools, and through a studious life, by the strong 
attractions of science, irrespective of any interested objects or 
of any reward, but such as reveal themselves to the under- 
standing and the heart, in the discovery of those great laws 
which the inscrutable wisdom of God has impressed upon 



ISO CHRISTIAN PR1NCJTLE IN 

His creation. It is not conceivable that such a principle 
should interfere with the highest moral development, or that 
it should fail in leading to the most desirable mental culture. 
Indeed, it approaches both in purity and efficiency the Chris- 
tian motive ; and but for the too narrow field of its opera- 
tions, we might be content to leave under its sole guidance 
all who will not be induced to learn the true philosophy of 
education from the great Teaeher. 

III. In attempting to show that the religion of Christ 
furnishes the student with the only safe and adequate motive 
to intellectual effort, I shall take it for granted that, so far 
as moral character is concerned, the truth of this proposition 
is conceded by all who hear me. Enlightened infidels do 
not hesitate to acknowledge the claims of the Gospel as the 
highest, purest source of morals ; and none but rank, bitter 
enemies nowadays call this claim in question. In address- 
ing myself to Christian young men, who cheerfully recognize 
the excellence of Christianity, even while they may live in 
neglect of many of its precepts and privileges, I may safely 
presume that they acknowledge the Bible as the only suffi- 
cient standard of moral virtue, and, therefore, the only safe 
guide in the formation of moral character. That the Gospel 
also furnishes the only safe and sufficient motive and guide 
to intellectual culture, I shall now proceed to demonstrate. 
And here I shall claim nothing for religion on strictly relig- 
ious and theological grounds. I shall only refer to it as a 
system of truth and duty, exerting, and entitled to exert, a 
strong and permanent influence upon human conduct and 
character, from its natural and philosophical, no less than 
from its moral relations to men. How, then, does Christian- 
ity bear upon the question of intellectual education, and min- 
ister incentives and aids to high mental improvement ? 

1 . Its great law of responsibility furnishes a motive 
of great and ever-living efficacy. 

Were it possible to lift up the vail which conceals from 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 181 

observation the secret springs of human action, it would be 
discovered that a deep conviction of accountability to God is 
the most pervading and powerful of these occult agencies. 
In the irreligious, this principle chiefly operates in the re- 
straints which it imposes upon their bad dispositions ; and 
to it we must chiefly refer the wide difference between the 
actual conduct and character of men, and that profounder 
depravity and overflowing profligacy which would prevail in 
the absence of all sense of moral and religious obligation. It 
is, however, upon pious minds that this principle operates 
with its fullest force. In them every act and enterprise is 
subordinated to this universal law. " Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do ?" is the burden of every prayer. They " la- 
bor to be approved unto God ;" and they are only satisfied 
with their own performances in proportion as all things have 
been done with a "single eye." They must "eat and drink 
to the glory of God." His claims to homage extend to every 
" word" and " act ;" and they charge themselves to remem- 
ber that they are to give account for all "the deeds done in 
the body." Such a conviction of responsibility, in proportion 
as it is honestly entertained and obeyed, becomes the great 
law of life, and impresses with its potency, and tinges with 
its hues, every spring of action and every phase of character. 
It will be admitted, I am sure, that this great Christian 
motive presses upon none with more urgency, or with an au- 
thority more imperative and sacred, than upon the young 
man led by his own inclinations, and allowed by providen- 
tial circumstances, to devote his early years to mental cul- 
ture. He is engaged in elevating and purifying that part of 
his nature which constitutes him a man and a child of eter- 
nity — for which God manifests his care in all the arrange- 
ments of his grace, and for which Christ died on the cross. 
He is engaged in fitting for high uses the instrument by which 
alone he can honor God or enjoy Him, or promote the happi- 
ness of his fellow-creatures. If there is done on this earth a 



182 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

work of some importance and dignity, the culture of the im- 
mortal mind is such a work. To perform this work well, to 
make the most of these priceless opportunities, is ohviously a 
sacred duty. The student occupies a high and holy trust. 
By diligence and fidelity in his work, he augments forever 
his own powers of happiness and usefulness. He augments 
the means of happiness intrusted to him for human society. 
He augments his own capacity for knowing, enjoying, and 
honoring God. Shall it be thought a slight offense to prove 
false to such obligations ? Shall the man who perverts in- 
fluence, or squanders wealth, or violates a public trust, be' 
deemed culpable, and is he innocent who robs himself, and 
society, and God, of talents put in his hands, not to be buried 
or wasted, but to be improved to the utmost ? Surely, if God 
will judge the world in righteousness, and, with a rigorous 
impartiality, demand his own, with usury, from every delin- 
quent, the inquisition will press hard upon those who are ac- 
cused of wasting the most precious of their Lord's goods — 
the immortal mind, made to appreciate his character and "* 
promote his glory. Upon every student rests this fearful re- 
sponsibility ; and every Christian student will recognize and 
respect it with a degree of solemn earnestness proportioned 
to his intelligence and piety. He will feel that "he is not 
his own" — that his talents and opportunities are only his to 
improve and employ conscientiously, and to account for in. the 
last day. Under such convictions, he can neither idle nor 
trifle. He will find in them a sleepless, faithful monitor, to 
rebuke away indolence and apathy ; to whisper hope and he- 
roism into his fainting spirit ; to prescribe temperance in all 
things ; to endow his hours with such a sanctity that it were 
sacrilege to waste them ; to give law to his resting, his ris- 
ing, and his recreation ; to invoke his profounder respect for 
statutes and usages established for the maintenance of need- 
ful order, and for the protection against all intrusion of time 
consecrated to study. Such is the natural influence, and the 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 183 

actual, so far as conscience has fair play, which religion ex- 
erts over intellectual improvement. I grieve to admit that 
not a few nominally Christian students are neither industri- 
ous nor law : abiding, though idle and disorderly are epithets 
as incongruous to their holy profession as profane and intem- 
perate. It is also saddening to the heart to observe the course 
of too many Christian young men, after they have passed the 
earlier stages of literary preparation. They cease to be stu- 
dents as soon as they are fairly launched upon the voyage of 
life. They are at the zenith of their intellectual greatness 
at thirty or thirty-five. A modicum of professional lore, a 
poor pittance of theology, a petty curriculum of pulpit prep- 
aration, is all they ever add to the measure of attainment 
with which they enter upon active life. Progress from hence- 
forth there is none, except in the wrong direction. The 
starved intellect dwindles for want of fresh supplies of its 
natural aliment ; imagination falters and grows dim, disgust- 
ed with its own worn-out imagery ; discourse becomes flat and 
unprofitable, without freshness or point ; and at fifty you have 
a man physically strong, but intellectually exhausted, inca- 
pable of doing any thing pleasant or profitable to God or man. 
Every such sad example implies gross recreancy to Christian 
obligations. Those who keep the commandment, " add to 
their virtue knowledge ;" they " grow in grace and in the 
knowledge of Christ ;" and their intellectual pathway shines 
brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.* 

* The limits of a single discourse would only allow a passing allu- 
sion to the subject of this paragraph, though its intrinsic importance 
might well claim a far more extended consideration. The evil refer- 
red to is the besetting sin of educated men in the United States, which, 
so far as I have enjoyed opportunities of observation, gives them a bad 
distinction in comparison with those of other countries. With regard 
to the great body of our graduates, it may be affirmed, without qualifi- 
cation, that they make no advancement in classical and scientific knowl- 
edge after leaving college. The two or three years usually devoted to 
professional studies, carry forward the work of mental discipline with 



184 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

2. Responsibility to God is the most powerful of all mo- 
tives to intellectual exertion, and it operates upon every con- 

some good effect ; but, upon their entrance into active life, three fourths 
of our scholars bid a final adieu to both literature and science, as if these 
were only fit for schoolboys, and of no further use for mental culture, 
for graceful accomplishment, or elegant recreation. We have an in- 
creasing, though still a very small class of professionally literary men — 
authors, editors, philosophers, &c. — who make letters and science their 
business. We may add to these the professors and teachers in our 
leading educational establishments, and now and then a clergyman or 
physician, chiefly of the younger class: the residue of our liberally ed- 
ucated men not only make no advancement in scholastic attainments, 
but are actually retrograding to a point where a page of Tacitus, or a 
proposition in Euclid, becomes to them the profoundest of mysteries. 
Even in professional learning, little progress is usually made beyond 
the demand of an imperative necessity ; and it is only in the hands of 
a few that medicine, law, or theology becomes a really liberal profes- 
sion. It seems doubtful whether any decided improvement will very 
soon be achieved. Growth in civilization, and the keener competition 
and more minute and better-defined division of labor, which must result 
from a dense population, and the prevalence of a higher general intel- 
ligence, will gradually create and enforce a demand for better literary 
qualifications. Meantime the strong inducements to active business 
life — the temptations of trade, or speculation, and other methods of 
money-making — will continue to seduce our educated men to desert or 
neglect their proper sphere. Above all, the bottomless pit of politics 
will still swallow up its hecatombs of noble victims. For all this there 
is really no remedy in our present state of society ; and it only remains 
for our literary institutions to use all diligence in repairing the waste. 
More than ever is it incumbent upon them to elevate the standard of 
education, and furnish our rising scholars with the greatest practicable 
amount of good cultivation, since it is quite certain, with regard to the 
most of them, that they will cease from all literary improvement as soon 
as they become their own teachers. 

So far as these strictures are applicable to Christian scholars, the evil 
ought to find its cure in their conscientiousness, and their zeal to obtain 
the highest qualifications for usefulness. To these moral influences are 
we indebted for a majority of the examples of literary industry and ex 
cellence that still exist among us. A considerable number of clergy 
men, especially, retain their habits of careful study and mental activity 
to advanced age. It must be confessed, however, that, as a class, they 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 185 

scientious student with a force proportioned to his intelligence 
and piety. Religion supplies other influences auxiliary to 

are far from guiltless of the shortcomings on which we have ventured 
to comment. 

There is one form of this grievous error to which an interesting class 
of our graduates are especially exposed, and which merits, on that ac- 
count, a passing notice. I refer to preachers and candidates for the 
ministry, of whom our graduating classes annually furnish the Church 
with an increasing number. A large majority of these become itiner- 
ant ministers, a peculiarity in their mode of life which is liable to exert 
a special influence upon intellectual character. The frequent changes 
involved in this system of ministerial labor, though by no means incom- 
patible with the highest intellectual attainments, and confessedly very 
favorable to a zealous and effective discharge of the most important 
ministerial duties, offer to those who are willing to fall into such a 
snare some peculiar temptations to intellectual sloth. The custom of 
writing sermons, or skeletons of sermons, has become much more com- 
mon than it was among the fathers of the denomination ; and all, or 
nearly all of our ministers preserve in manuscript such ample minutes 
of the plan, topics, and arguments of their pulpit exhibitions, as may 
serve for future use. The propriety of such a course is unquestionable ; 
and our objections are only directed against the grievous, ruinous abuses 
to which it is perverted. After some time spent in the ministry, a stu- 
dious man finds himself in possession of a good supply of prepared dis- 
courses, sufficient, in all probability, to meet the demands of a circuit 
or station for the one or two years which our plan allows him to spend 
with the same congregation. By a judicious intermingling of these old 
sermons with others prepared from week to week, and adapted to the 
special exigencies of the work, a conscientious, industrious man secures 
invaluable time, not only for pastoral duties, but for such mental culture 
and new acquisitions as shall insure a constant growth in wisdom, in- 
fluence, and usefulness, from youth to old age. To those who know 
how to improve it, our itinerant ministry offers in this respect a special 
advantage over a more permanent settlement; and some of our preach- 
ers eagerly avail themselves of its facility. Upon not a few promising 
young men, however, this peculiarity of our system operates not only 
disadvautageously, but fatally. When their stock of sermons, or plans, 
has accumulated, so far as to answer current demands upon it, they 
make no more, and cease to be students. There is an end to all im- 
provement, and they stagger on to premature mental decrepitude un- 
der the burden of these some four or five hundred stale, antiquated 



186 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

this, which act upon and through some of the strongest prin- 
ciples of our mental and moral constitution. It is an incur- 

sermons. In not a few instances, the victims of this stupendous of- 
fense against the human understanding, and the claims of God upon 
his ministers, reach their climacteric at thirty years of age, after which 
they neither study nor think, unless we are to dignify as intellectual 
efforts the half hour devoted, from week to week, to conning over the 
well-remembered, venerable manuscript. Every one in the least ac- 
quainted with the powers and laws of the mind is able to comprehend 
the stupendous folly of these men. The human intellect gains expan- 
sion, and vigor, and acuteness by activity. It must work, or dwindle 
and starve. It must think — think habitually, earnestly, consecutively 
— or it will, ere long, lose its power of thinking. The perusal and re- 
perusal of yellow manuscripts is not study. The recollection and rep- 
etition of old sermons is not thinking. The mind must do something 
— must invent something fresh — must work and wrestle with new 
problems and deep propositions, in order to give hardness and vigor to 
its own sinews. The hand that wields the hammer, or plies the grav- 
ing tool, constantly gains strength and skill ; but, suspended in a sling, 
it will not be long in forgetting its cunning. The Hindoo devotee, who 
has been stationary ever since he learned to stand on one foot, has also 
lost the power of locomotion. 

Our objection is not to the quality of the old sermons. They may 
be very good, and theoretically very well adapted to the existing wants 
of the hearer. It is possible they are even better than the preacher 
may now be able to produce. All this may very likely be true, and 
yet they may be useless to the people and discreditable to the preach 
er ; while very inferior discourses, fresh from the mint of the soul, and 
blazing with the fervors of an excited, laboring mind, will awaken pro- 
found emotion in the hearer's as well as the preacher's heart. Old 
sermons are preached with good effect by men who are: still in the 
habit of making new ones, and who keep their intellects thoroughly 
awake by study and invention. They then receive a new endowment 
of life and power, a new assimilation to the pious spirit, by passing 
through such an intense resuscitating medium. Without this fresh, 
vivifying baptism, these repetitions are, irrespective of their intrinsic 
quality, the stalest and most unsavory of human performances. They 
remind us of the desiccated preparations of the botanist, which are 
•quite bereft of all their fragrance, and grace, and charming colors, 
though one might not be prepared to deny that they still retaizi a 
measure of latent medicinal virtue. It may be laid down as a first 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 187 

able fault of lower motives that they operate unsteadily, and 
cease, for the most part, to exert any salutary, sufficient au- 

principle, that he can not long continue a useful, nor even a popular 
preacher, who has ceased to be a student. He must himself gradually 
lose all relish for the dry, irksome work of memory and repetition, to 
which he dooms himself. However habit or temperament may enable 
him to preach with apparent warmth and vivacity, his announcements 
of truth do in fact no longer bear the sanction and endorsement of his 
own deep, living convictions ; for neither reason, nor conscience, nor 
faith is much concerned in the reproduction. If this sort of work is 
distasteful to the preacher, it soon becomes loathsome to the hearer, 
with whom all such exhibitions pass for mere routine or declamation. 
A clerical brother lately said to me, " I know several preachers in the 

Conference who have not studied in ten or twenty years." Such 

ministers are only less guilty than those who have not prayed in ten or 
twenty years ; for it is quite as practicable to be a good preacher of the 
Gospel without praying as without studying. No minister can main- 
tain a respectable position, and satisfy the wants of an intelligent con- 
gregation, who is not a diligent student. No matter if he has a cart- 
load of prepared sermons, and they as good as ever Paul preached, ho 
must bring out " things new" as well as old, if he would make his min- 
istrations either profitable or acceptable to the people. At least half of 
the sermons called for by the exigences of ministerial labor should be 
produced by current efforts. To say nothing of doing good to others, 
the study and preparation of one sermon a week is no more than is 
requisite for the best nurture of mental and moral life. The greatest 
boon that could befall many preachers would be the conflagration of 
their old store of manuscripts. Any thing that should induce or com- 
pel them to return to studious habits, were better than the mental in- 
activity which dooms so many good men to actual inefficiency and su- 
perannuation, at a time of life when experience and hoarded wisdom 
should qualify them for the most extended usefulness, and the most 
salutary, effective popularity. Self-educated men are not less — it may 
be they are even more — exposed to this deadly sin than the graduates 
of our colleges. If the latter often mortify their friends, and bring re- 
proach upon the cause of education by their indolence, and consequent 
miserable, petty mediocrity, the former, with no less frequency, disap- 
point the favorable hopes awakened by their early proficiency, and fall 
back, from a position won by manly efforts, and full alike of honor and 
of promise, to a grade of performances and aspirations false to all the 
traditions and anticipations to which such auspicious beginnings had 
given rise in the Church. 



188 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

thority, at periods of life when the mind is yet vigorous, and 
susceptible of large and rapid progress. Self-interest, as we 

No subject connected with our itinerant ministry, and with the great 
interests providentially intrusted to it, is more worthy of deep, solemn 
consideration than that so imperfectly discussed in this note. That the 
evil referred to is not rare among us, every observing man knows full 
well. That it must, to whatever extent it prevails, impair the efficien- 
cy, the respectability, and the moral integrity of our ministry, is too 
painfully obvious to require proof or argument. The Church has need 
to watch vigilantly against this great delinquency. Qur ministers, both 
in open Conference and in their private intercourse, are wont to exer- 
cise over each other a supervision, comprehensive and searching, be- 
yond any thing known among other denominations. Something might 
possibly be done in this way to mitigate a great, if not a growing evil. 
But the remedy chiefly to be relied on rests with individual conscience, 
with our young ministers especially, whose mental habits are not yet 
formed, or, if formed, not yet perverted. It is for them to determine 
whether, with the increasing advantages of education, of many and 
cheap books, and of more leisure for study, our ministry shall grow in 
grace and knotoledge — whether our revered itinerancy shall continue to 
show itself adapted to the increasing intelligence and refinement of the 
age. That this, and much more, is practicable, we do most devoutly 
believe ; but the full success of the great experiment demands a great 
increase of knowledge and intellectual accomplishments among our 
clergy. Nothing less will do. Nothing less can sustain us where we 
are, or prevent decline and deterioration. Ardent, self-sacrificing pie- 
ty is a qualification always presupposed in a minister of Christ, about 
which there is no need that any thing should be said in this connection 
further than to insist upon that particular manifestation of it which leads 
to thorough, systematic, various, protracted study. For this nothing can 
be taken as a substitute. True, "it is better to save souls than to study." 
The effect is more excellent than the cause ; but it can not exist inde- 
pendent of its cause ; and nothing is more idle than the common plea 
of much preaching, or much pastoral visiting, as an apology for little 
study, and poor, stale sermons. Preaching, effectual, good preaching, 
is what the Gospel relies on for success, and this without diligent study 
is an impossibility. Whoever attempts to divorce what God has joined 
together, will be sufficiently rebuked by an unblessed, uncomfortable, 
unwelcome ministry. He may be popular, and even useful, in the hey- 
day of youth, when personal advantages — sweet tones, glossy ringlets, 
flowing sympathies — and still more, good hopes generously cherished 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 189 

have seen, soon contracts the intellect and hardens the heart 
— fatal checks upon progress, deadly foes to all excellence. 
Ambition puts its votaries upon other expedients than liter- 
ary efforts for the attainment of success. Disappointment, 
too, and disgust, with which ambition must generally lay its 
account, impair and often destroy its efficiency, as a motive 
to intellectual activity, when the career of honorable enter- 
prise has only commenced. Many a gallant spirit, urged on 
its course by these unchastened impulses, have we seen 
stranded and motionless amid the sad wreck of high hopes, 
long ere his sun had reached its meridian. Now it is the 
special advantage of the Christian motive that it acts with 
a steady, and even increasing force, to the end of life. No 
disappointment can chill its energy, for that flows forth upon 
the soul from inexhaustible perennial sources. 

It is also a consideration full of the mightiest impulses, that 
intellectual growth and amelioration, like moral, are achieved 
for eternal duration. The labor requisite for acquisition and 
discipline is lightened and sweetened by the reflection that 
it is to qualify an immortal spirit the better to perform its 
functions ; more perfectly to understand, and more keenly to 
enjoy all that God shall reveal or enjoin through the long 
annals of an endless life. The mind does not die, and he 
who sends it onward upon its sublime career, enlarged and 
trained by wholesome discipline, and richly furnished with 
the knowledge of imperishable truths, "lays up treasure 
where neither moth nor rust corrupt." Nothing in religion 
or enlightened philosophy will justify the fear that the high 
intellectual attributes with which the redeemed soul enters 

by the Church, and not yet Wasted, plead in his favor ; but some higher 
demands await his maturer years. Gray hairs must come crowned with 
superior wisdom and piety, if they will conciliate reverence and affec- 
tion; and he alone who does not despair of remaining always young, 
is excusable for omitting to provide betimes for the exigencies of a pe- 
riod which will sternly require the fulfillment of all early promises. 



190 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

heaven, may not find worthy and significant employment 
there. The pious student, then, may exultingly write down 
for his motto, "I study for eternity ;" and in so sublime 
a sentiment will he find unfailing encouragement to patient 
industry and persevering labor. 

3. In nothing, perhaps, is the great superiority of the Chris 
tian, over all other motives, more manifest than in the uni- 
form and powerful co-operation which it secures of the emo- 
tional with the intellectual forces of the mind. All work is 
briskly done when the heart is in it. Eminently true is this 
of intellectual labor ; and from the schoolboy under the ush- ' 
er's rod, to the grave philosopher, those mental tasks which 
awaken a lively interest, and are performed with satisfaction, 
are easily and rapidly achieved. Whatever is attempted un- 
der the high sanctions of Christian obligation, possesses this 
advantage in an eminent degree. It is done to please God, 
and to glorify his name. It affords, therefore, to the pious 
spirit, an opportunity, ever eagerly embraced, for discharging 
a debt of gratitude, and offering testimonials of duty and loy- 
alty. The heart at once warms to such an enterprise, and 
til the powers of the soul gladly co-operate in a work of an 
import so high. The Christian scholar is thus enabled to 
be always in earnest. His love and fidelity to God, and his 
gratitude to Christ, are concerned in the most effective dis- 
charge of this important class of duties, and his prayers and 
sacraments are not felt to be more obligatory upon him than 
the claims of the study and the lecture-room. He learns to 
prosecute every science, and fulfill every scholastic engage- 
ment, under the supervision of an all-seeing and never-sleep- 
ing Eye. How feeble and inconstant are all the motives 
which selfishness and ambition can furnish, in comparison 
with those which the love of God, and conscious amenability 
to Him, are able to awaken in the pious heart ! Let no one 
hastily conclude that this is a merely theoretical view of the 
subject, of no application to the matter in hand. On the 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 191 

contrary, it is a view applicable to every Christian scholar, 
and constitutes the actual motive of his conduct, in so far as 
he has any claim to the name of Christian. He studies as 
he would toil in any other sphere — as, called with a higher 
vocation, he would preach the Gospel, or go upon a mission 
to the heathen — that he may glorify God in the performance 
of the duties providentially assigned him. They know little 
of the deep sentiments and holy aspirations of pious young 
men in our colleges, who doubt whether they pursue their 
self-denying career, and struggle with narrow means, and 
often with feeble health, under the lofty impulses which re- 
ligion inspires. "With very many of them, these, I am sure, 
constitute the motive and the solace of their toils ; and I will 
not hesitate to avow that the example of such young men, 
toiling on for a series of years, amid discouragements of 
many kinds, that they may by-and-by be qualified for use- 
fulness in the Master's vineyard, has often proved most in- 
structive and sustaining to me, and has admonished me to 
stand patiently and bravely in my lot, albeit ready to faint 
under the pressure of burdens disproportioned to my strength. 
4. A similar augmentation of spiritual forces comes in upon 
the pious student from another quarter. Benevolence, and 
an ardent desire to do good to mankind, take the place of the 
narrow selfishness which, under less favorable conditions, con- 
stitutes the chief incentive to exertion. We know to what 
heights of self-sacrificing eflbrt and virtue, philanthropy has 
been able to elevate the great benefactors of mankind ; through 
what dangers, and over what obstacles it has borne them on- 
ward to their angelic achievements. This ambition to miti- 
gate the woes, and augment the happiness of others, pours 
all its generous, powerful impulses into the bosom of many a 
pious student, and becomes the sleepless monitor of his wak- 
ing, working hours. As the love of God enlists all the ener- 
gies and stabilities of Christian principle on the side of earn- 
est, persevering industry, love to man awakens and pressea 



192 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

into the same service all the strong sympathies of our hu- 
manity. These are confessedly the most powerful of all the 
agencies that go to influence the conduct or modify the char- 
acter of men. They minister amazing energy to the mind. 
They rouse every dormant power into action. They arm the 
soul with preternatural efficiency. They make the mind in- 
ventive, vigilant, and daring. Faith, hope, and charity have 
each their functions to fulfill in every department of Chris- 
tian action, and nowhere else more than in the student's ca- 
reer ; but the greatest of these is charity — the most anima- 
ting, the most powerful, the most enduring of all the motives 
that minister earnestness and encouragement to the Chris- 
tian student. 

5. It will hardly be deemed a diversion from this strain of 
argument to remark upon the elevating, plastic influence 
of prosecuting a protracted literary course at the forming pe- 
riod of life, under these lofty, pure, and disinterested motives. 
You can not imagine any other course so well calculated to 
form large-minded, generous, upright men. Whoever makes 
the will of God the rule, and the glory of God, and the wel- 
fare of men, the chief objects of his intellectual efforts, through 
a series of years, subjects his mind, as well as his heart, to a 
meliorating process of unparalleled efficacy. Nothing base, 
or degrading, or selfish should be expected to survive such a 
course of discipline, and it would be difficult to conceive of 
any virtue fitted to adorn or strengthen the character which 
should not find in it precisely the conditions most favorable 
to vigorous, ample development. 

It is also material to remark, that such a scholastic career 
tends powerfully to supply the great desideratum in educated 
men — the harmony of the mind and the heart, the joint 
working of strong intellect and strong feeling — upon which 
all great mental efficiency and all true eloquence depend, 
and without which the scholar can never hope to wield a 
great and permanent influence over the most precious inter- 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 193 

ests of man and society. The arts of the rhetorician, however 
diligently plied, are all at fault here. Rules for managing 
the voice, or the eye, or the hands, and other physical aux- 
iliaries to persuasion and oratory, can but kindle a cold, lus- 
treless fire, which shall be as the crackling of thorns ; while 
a well-endowed nature, diligently trained by education, and 
put in harmony with God and itself by religion, shall be able 
to pour forth, spontaneously, a tide of persuasive eloquence, 
whenever invoked by a worthy occasion. This, as is well 
known, is the perfect ideal held up by the rhetoricians to as- 
pirants after forensic reputation ; but it mostly escapes them 
that it is one of those priceless gifts which can not be won 
by unsanctified labor, but which, in a very important sense, 
cometh down from the Father of lights. 

6. I will add, that education, prosecuted under the au- 
spices of religion, enjoys a great facility in the freedom of its 
subjects from the low tastes, bad passions, and vicious hab- 
its, which constitute chief obstacles to proficiency in learning. 
These are utterly incompatible with sincere piety, and can 
not coexist with it ; while any Christian profession, not whol- 
ly reckless of reputation and consistency, must avoid the 
grosser and more degrading forms of immorality. Every de- 
gree of religious principle and restraint, therefore, contributes 
a highly important influence toward the success of educa- 
tional efforts ; while deep and ardent piety, welcomed as the 
guide in literary pursuits, conducts to degrees of excellence 
and success unattainable on lower principles. 

My inferences from this protracted discussion must be few 
and brief. 

1. Let* every young man, especially let every educated 
young man, pause at the commencement of his career, till 
he thoroughly comprehends the importance of setting out 
with a proper theory of life. Let him " arise and shake him- 
self." Let him spurn away from him, for one holy hour, tho 

I 



194 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

blandishments of ease and pleasure. Let him burst from 
the bondage of all unmanly, unscholarly habits, like a brave, 
high-toned spirit, resolved to be his own master, and to rule 
himself well. He should ascend to some lofty mount of vi- 
sion, some Pisgah, from whose summit the whole land " that 
remaineth to be possessed" shall be clearly visible to his earn- 
est, honest gaze. Scorning to be hoodwinked and cheated 
by mere illusions, let him penetrate into the heart and real- 
ity of his whole destiny, doing impartial justice to the claims 
and dignity of the mind as well as the body — of the distant 
and the future no less than of the near and the present. 
With eternity and God before his eyes, and some reasonable, 
decent regard for his own well-being, let him come up to the 
great choice that, once for all, he must make for himself : 
" If the Lord be God, follow Him ; if Baal, then follow him." 
Let him remember that the principle which he adopts be- 
comes henceforward a living, molding influence. It will 
enter and dwell in the depths of his nature — a well of water 
springing up and overflowing the soul, imparting to it, through 
the long ages of the future, its own properties and hues. Re- 
member, young man, you are selecting a companion for the 
voyage of your entire existence, whose manners, habits, and 
sentiments so close and long an intimacy will make your 
own. You are determining what meat your soul shall be 
nurtured upon — what shall be the complexion of your future 
being. In forming a library, you would have good, and not 
bad, silly, corrupting books. In choosing a teacher or a place 
of education, you would avoid a driveler, and require the pro- 
tection of discipline and good order. Your physician must 
not be a quack nor a pretender. You are ambitious to give 
your adhesion to true and approved, not to antiquated and 
exploded systems of philosophy. In choosing your principles 
of action, and subjecting your 'mind to influences which must 
form its character and control its destiny, you consent to re- 
ceive into your bosom an agency more potent than books, or 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 195 

teachers, or schools ; more efficient than the physician's most 
heroic remedies ; more authoritative than all the sects of 
philosophers. You are thus called upon to assert the high- 
est privilege, and perform the highest function, of a free, re- 
deemed, heaven-born spirit. Show that you are worthy of 
the sacred trust which God, in His providence, confers upon 
you — the office of taking care of yourself. 

2. Having deliberately adopted a right principle of action, 
reverence and obey it. Make it the law of your life, from 
which no temptation, or interest, or accident shall ever se- 
duce you to swerve. It is an emanation from the Divine 
Wisdom fallen upon you, as a lamp for your feet. It is the 
sum and highest expression of all genial philosophies. Come 
what will — mat cadum, "though heaven and earth pass 
away" — resolve that no jot or tittle of this law shall be mar- 
red, or dishonored, or shorn of its authority. It shall be your 
charmed talisman, before which evil spirits will cry out in 
despair, or be smitten dumb with terror. It shall be your 
passport to excellence, and reputation, and power, and honest 
fame, at the presentation of which barred gates will open be- 
fore you to all choice and precious things. A conscientious, 
early, and absolute surrender of the life to the guidance of 
duty, brings into the mind a power far more valuable than 
would be the acquisition of new faculties ; it quadruples the 
efficiency of the old. It is better than genius or eloquence, 
and is often a good substitute for them. It simplifies all 
the movements of life. It cuts short a thousand struggles 
with temptation and passion. It is a thread of gold in the 
hands of inexperienced youth and care-worn manhood, to 
conduct the willing and obedient through the dark, pathless 
labyrinth of this world. Ordinary capacity trained and op- 
erating under this influence, in the end, outshines and out- 
strips the best parts without it. Not a class graduates in 
this, or any other college, which can not furnish living illus- 
trations of this truth. So profound is my conviction on this 



196 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

point, that I do not hesitate to proclaim it as the true, in- 
fallible way to success. Granted a subject for our experi- 
ment, not mentally halt, or maimed, or blind, in the posses- 
sion of merely common faculties, and a liberal education, pros- 
ecuted under the auspices of pure, high principles, shall make 
him every whit a man, fit for any profession or vocation to 
which society calls her intelligent, cultivated sons. 

I must subjoin the additional remark, that nothing begets 
such utter despair of success in teaching, no matter what the 
mental capacity, as indifference to moral and conscientious 
obligations. There is really no hope for a young man who 
will not listen to the voice of duty. He has fallen a prey 
to a mortal disease, for which no human skill can provide a 
remedy. The voice of duty is the voice of God — an inborn, 
heaven-sent guide. Not to obey it is to revolt against our 
own constitution ; it is as if one should refuse to give heed 
to the intimations of his senses — his eyes, his ears, or his 
touch — and will as certainly, and by as dire a philosophical 
necessity, bring upon him hopeless, irretrievable misfortune. 
When this mental disease is once established, I could wish 
never to see its victim enter the doors of a college, or armed 
with education, to be no ordinary scourge to himself and so- 
ciety. Let such a one be consigned to some narrow sphere 
of laborious life, where there is least room to encounter tempt- 
ation or exert influence, and where an urgent demand for 
strenuous, incessant toil may counteract and subdue more 
harmful tendencies. 

3. I shall conclude with a very simple practical direction. 
Always be ready to avow your principles of action. Scorn 
concealment. Put out your true colors to the gaze of men 
and angels. There is a false prudence, a mock modesty, 
which inculcates the opposite method. It discourages con- 
fession, as savoring of ostentation, and would have us leave 
the world to infer the existence of virtuous principle from 
our conduct. In most instances this is but a poltroon's ex- 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 197 

pedient to avoid responsibility, and save a convenient posi- 
tion for treachery or evasion. It is well and safe to stand 
committed to the right, that the world may know in advance 
where you will be found in any day of trial ; and it is a re- 
flection upon a good man's intelligence or integrity to have 
his opinions and principles forever unsettled or in doubt So- 
ciety has a right to know what it may expect from him, and 
justly suspects him of interested and dishonest aims when 
he chooses to remain undecided and uncommitted till popu- 
lar suffrage has announced the safe way. Educated men 
are the natural sources and guides of popular opinion, and 
they are bound to stand forth boldly to battle with prejudice 
and breast the inundation of passion, though at some risk of 
being swept away by its fury. The principles of the edu- 
cated, active, influential men, of every community, generally 
become its public sentiment. This living embodiment and 
expression of reason, truth, and righteousness, acts upon the 
multitude with vastly more directness and efficiency than 
books of morals and religion ; and as it constitutes the most 
effectual method for the formation and vigorous maintenance 
of a sound public sentiment, so it is chiefly relied upon for 
that function. On this account it was that the laws of Ath- 
ens held that citizen an enemy to the state who remained a 
neutral in any important crisis or question of general inter- 
est. The Redeemer of the world has given to this equita- 
ble principle the sanction of religion, and it is only they who 
confess, him before men whom he will confess before the an- 
gels in heaven. 

Let every one who would not become a mere puppet and 
time-server beware of feeling more solicitude for promotion 
than he does for his principles. If they are to be put down, 
it is a misfortune and a snare to rise ; and he should blusb, 
and suspect himself a knave, who is conscious of grudging 
the sacrifice which it may cost him to be an honest man. ~No 
valuable ends, besides those of selfish or profligate ambition 



198 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 

can ever be secured by such dishonorable successes ; and any 
but a weak or unscrupulous man will prefer to bide his fime, 
and wait for more auspicious days, when God, whose attri- 
butes ever side with the right, will pluck its drowned honors 
from the deep, and make the conscientious and the brave 
sharers in its triumph. Whoever covets promotion while his 
principles are under the ban, must fall back upon the expe- 
dients and resources of party, which is always framed and 
held together by compromises in which principle is sacrificed 
to policy. Into this turbid Maelstrom, from which virtue and 
conscience never come forth without a stain, good but ambi- 
tious men, of facile -morality and feeble purposes, are ever 
ready to plunge. 

As a good man is ever bound to manifest his principles in 
full view of the world, so should he, with a yet intenser so- 
licitude, strive to keep them boldly and vividly exposed to his 
own mind. He should accustom himself to gaze upon them 
with profound, and even awful respect. His soul should be 
pervaded by a deep, abiding sense of their importance, their 
sanctity, and their authority. Both the understanding and 
the heart need maintain the most intimate and conscious 
connection with the pure, sacred springs from which they de- 
rive their light and inspiration. In the great questions of 
humanity, morals, and religion, with which these latter days 
are rife, the Christian scholar should even hesitate to yield 
himself to the guidance of his most virtuous habits, or to the 
most deliberate and unsuspected of his by-gone conclusions, 
or to the conservative traditions which he may have imbibed 
from his converse with good books and wise men. In mat- 
ters of slight import and perpetual recurrence, these are suffi- 
cient safeguards against erroneous opinion or vicious action, 
but not in the great struggle for moral and social meliorations 
in which the educated men of this age are called to engage. 
He who would command the best resources for this high en- 
terprise, must penetrate deeper than habit, or opinion, or au» 



RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 199 

thority. He must live in hourly contact, and conscious, lov- 
ing communion with the principles of truth, righteousness, 
and mercy, that are within him. He must draw from the 
deep sources of all moral and intellectual power, and require 
of every cause which asks sympathy and co-operation, that 
it obtain afresh the approval of his reason and his conscience. 
His heart must beat, his bosom heave, and his eye flash only 
at the bidding of the great, deep, holy principles which his 
own strenuous efforts and the grace of God have imbedded 
in his nature, to minister light to his soul, and vigor to his 
arm, and fire to. his eloquenee. In the dogmas of such a 
philosophy must the philanthropist and the Christian seek 
for strength. Here is the inexhaustible source of the only 
species of power of which a good man may be innocently 
ambitious. 

Your thoughts, young gentlemen, have all along outrun 
my speculations. From the first you anticipated my conclu- 
sions. Remote as was our starting-point, abstract and spec- 
ulative as is our argument, we find ourselves conducted to 
the true source of wisdom and virtue. Behold in the cross 
of Christ the only sure guaranty for intellectual excellence 
and success ! Does the student need a lofty, omnipotent, un- 
dying motive to sustain him in his long struggle with labor, 
disappointment, and temptation — with the world's unfriend- 
liness, and his own manifold infirmities ? Such a motive 
he finds in the Gospel, and nowhere else. Are noble senti- 
ments, strong, deep sympathies, and j)ure, powerful feelings, 
indispensable agents in the highest intellectual performan- 
ces? They are supplied in the principles and experiences 
of that religion which inculcates, as the sum of all righte- 
ousness, perfect devotion and perfeet benevolence — that "we 
love the Lord our God with all the heart, and our neighbor 
as ourselves." Are the tastes to be elevated, the appetites 
subdued, and the passions controlled, in order to secure to 
the mind's operations freedom from all impediments and dis- 



200 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE, ETC. 

tracting influences ? This miracle, too, the Gospel can ao 
complish. It is profitable for all things. " Love, joy, peace, 
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
ance," are its legitimate fruits. " They that are Christ's, 
have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." They 
are endowed with "whatsoever things are honest, and lovely, 
and of good report." 

I have brought you to the cross, my friends, and I leave 
you there. be content to receive your illumination from 
this, the great central light of the universe ! Hence — if you 
will cultivate the loftiest ambition, and secure the best at- 
tainments — hence draw your inspiration. Hither come for 
power and for joy ; hither bring all your honors and suc- 
cesses, and consecrate them " to Him who hath loved us, 
and washed us from our sins in his own blood." "Write the 
name of Christ upon your banner ; exalt the cross high above 
all idols : " In hoc signo vinces." Be 

" Siloa's brook, that flow'd 
Fast by the oracles of God," 
your Castalia. 

To such good auspices it is my privilege once more affec- 
tionately to commend you ; and may the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the 
Holy Ghost, be with you, new and ever. Amen. 



EAItLY PIETY THE BASIS, ETC. 201 



IV. 
EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF ELEVATED CHARACTER. 

A DISCOURSE TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE WESLEYAN 
UNIVERSITY. 1849. 

I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and 
the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked 
one. — 1 John, ii., 14. 

The Gospel demands of every human being an unreserved 
consecration of body and soul, with all their energies and ca- 
pabilities, throughout the entire period of his probation. In 
thus claiming for God all the services which a mortal man, 
aided by Divine grace, can render, it puts forth a claim upon 
any peculiar powers, endowments, or faculties with which he 
may be providentially endowed or intrusted. In asserting 
its rightful dominion over our entire earthly career, it pro- 
claims the Divine right to reign with an undivided and un- 
rivaled authority over each period of life. Every talent is 
confided to us under the tacit condition that it shall be used 
and improved in accordance with the will and design of the 
great Giver. Days, and months, and years are added to our 
existence here below, because they supply us with more op- 
portunities and advantages for working out our own salva- 
tion, and promoting the well-being of others ; for building up 
the kingdom of Christ, and making manifest the glory of 
God. For the attainment of these high ends, much reliance 
is placed upon human exertion, and the physical and intel- 
lectual resources of every age and station are tasked to the 
uttermost. Even the morning of existence, and the child- 
hood of religious life, are pressed into this great enterprise. 



202 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

" I write unto you, little children, because your sms are for- 
given you for His name's sake." The glow, and out-burst- 
ing, joyous gratitude of the new-born soul — the fervors of 
his " first love" — the fresh lustre of his " beautiful garments," 
become potent agencies for good, and no more pleasant in- 
cense than his ever rises up to Heaven. 

The mature piety and deep acquaintance with Divine 
things, which are the result of long experience and habitual 
communion with God, also have their special vocation under 
the Gospel economy. " I write unto you, fathers, because 
ye have known Him that is from the beginning." These 
" old disciples" constitute the link of connection between the 
existing Christian Church and the Church of history, as well 
as between the Church militant and the Church triumphant. 
They are the channels through which the tide of spiritual 
life has flowed down upon us from the ages of the past. 
They are the depositaries of reverend traditions, and the con- 
servators and models of orthodoxy in opinion and purity of 
life. Without being conscious of exercising so high a func- 
tion, they have made the Church what it is. Our Chris- 
tianity, with all its excellences as well as its imperfections, 
has been derived from theirs. It has, no doubt, undergone 
some modifications. It has, in some respects, deteriorated in 
our hands. In others, it has grown better ; but, as a whole, 
it is a natural and fair derivation from the waning Christian 
age, to which a new and vigorous religious generation are 
rapidly succeeding. We sometimes unconsciously look upon 
the company of venerable disciples who move in the van of 
our heavenward march, as having really, and to all import- 
ant ends, accomplished their warfare and won the victory. 
Should all others forsake the Savior, they, we feel quite sure, 
will never participate in the crime ; for they have lived unto 
God till religion has, through grace, become a sort of second 
nature, in which all their habits, and sentiments, and aspira- 
tions, and joys have their source and support. To turn them 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 203 

away from God and the heavenly inheritance must require 
some great moral convulsion. It would be like the annul 
ment of the law of gravitation — like thrusting a rolling plan- 
et from its appointed orb. We do not subscribe to the ina- 
missibility of grace, and the inevitable salvation of all souls 
once regenerated, and yet we firmly believe that these fa- 
thers and mothers in Israel will never fall. They will abide 
in the old paths, whoever turns back. They remember the 
days of old. They " know Him that is from the beginning." 
So long, at least, as they live, there will be true witnesses. 
Their trumpet shall give a certain sound. They are living 
epistles of Christ, which shall continue to be read of all men. 
So long as they constitute a part of the life of the Church, 
the Church can not lose its vitality. While their presence 
and prayers among us will certainly conciliate the Divine fa- 
vor, and perpetuate a holy seed, they reprove our backslid- 
aigs, and warn us of dangers, and recall to us the landmarks 
*f truth, and experience, and duty. 

Let us thank God for so bright a manifestation of His 
^race in the fathers, who still bless and guide us by their 
counsels, and in the yet larger company of mature, establish- 
ed Christians, who still bear the burden and heat of the day. 
We may yet rejoice in their light for a season, and there will 
be days of mourning when these luminaries, so long our 
guides and exemplars, shall one after another be exalted to 
shed their radiance upon brighter, holier regions. It will, 
however, readily occur to the thoughtful hearer, that the high 
qualities, in virtue of which aged, mature Christians fulfill 
for the Church offices so conservative and salutary, are par- 
tially or wholly incompatible with the performance of other 
functions connected no less intimately with the spread and 
efficacy of the Gospel. Conservatism, which spontaneously 
clings to the past, is less favorable to progress. Zeal for 
traditional or hereditary opinions or usages is often indis- 
criminate, and is prone to resist not rash innovations and per- 



204 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

nicious novelties alone, but needful improvements. It is no 
slight calamity that befalls religion and human society when 
venerable truths and ancient institutions are guarded with a 
morbid jealousy, which rejects new discoveries and salutary 
changes. The Church, under such unpropitious circum- 
stances, is in danger of losing its power and vitality, and of 
wasting its energies in idle • contests for dogmas and forms, 
which, however true or scriptural, are no longer of any spe 
cial significance or utility, now that their life and spirit have 
departed from them. And here we have occasion to adore the 
infinite wisdom of the great Head of the Church, in em- 
ploying for its edification such a variety of gifts and agencies. 
Under His wonderful economy, men of all ranks and capac- 
ities co-operate harmoniously for the production of a com- 
mon result, each fulfilling his own special and appropriate 
function, and, at the same time, supplying some deficiency, 
or checking some exaggerated action of his fellow-laborer. 
The rich and the poor have assigned to them their spheres, 
and they contribute not alike, but equally, it may be, to the 
general weal. The faith, and prayers, and spotless example 
of an illiterate or obscure man, may promote as successfully 
the great designs of Christianity as the counsels of the sage 
or the eloquence of the learned. Thus it is that " the whole 
body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which 
every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in 
the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto 
the edifying ©f itself in love." 

For the satisfaction of wants and liabilities which find no 
adequate provision in the fixed ideas and unyielding habits 
of veteran piety, the Gospel makes its appeal to the special 
endowments and adaptations of the young. " I have writ- 
ten unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the 
word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wick 
ed one." In the economy of Divine Providence, youth is en- 
dowed with peculiar attributes, on which the success of all 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 205 

great moral and social interests and enterprises is made de- 
pendent. 

This responsibility for the well-being of the race, which 
accrues to the young in virtue of their providential endow- 
ments, is devolved upon them by an inevitable destiny. 
They are the predestined successors of all who now wield 
moral influence, and all who occupy positions of authority 
and power. They are moving incessantly onward toward 
this great inheritance, and the flight of years makes haste 
to bring them into contact with burdens and responsibilities 
which they can not elude or devolve upon others. Those 
who are now young must govern mankind. They must 
become the teachers of the race. They must become the 
world's law-givers, and its dispensers of justice. They must 
manage its material interests — must plan and prosecute its 
improvements and meliorations — must conduct its wars and 
negotiations — must meet the unseen exigencies of the great 
future. God has provided no other teachers for that coming 
generation, which, in its turn, is destined to occupy this great 
field of action and probation, and to transmit to a still later 
posterity its character — its virtues, and vices, and achieve- 
ments. Were we able to divest this great law of human ex- 
istence of its inefficiency as a hackneyed truism, and clothe 
it in the freshness and potency of a newly-discovered truth, 
we should need no other argument to impress upon the young 
the duty of diligence and faithfulness in their high vocation ; 
for the young, though often rash and reckless of the future, 
are neither selfish nor malevolent. They would not trust 
themselves upon the inheritance in reserve for them without 
qualifications to preserve and improve it. They would not 
bring back upon the world the ignorance of the Dark Ages, 
nor reproduce upon the face of civilized society the horrible 
scenes of the Reign of Terror. They would not tarnish the lus- 
tre of our national character by deeds of cowardice, treachery, 
or dishonor. They would not give to the country a race of 



206 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

incompetent or profligate statesmen. They would recoil from 
the thought of occupying the pulpits of this Christian land, 
the strongholds of its morality and stern virtues, without the 
requisite qualifications of intelligence and piety. They would 
not dwarf and taint the public mind with a feehle, polluted 
literature, nor degrade the schools and liberal professions to 
which this great republic looks for the men of the future — 
its orators, its teachers, the guides of its youth, and the lead- 
ers of its senates. And yet nothing is more certain than that 
*hese great interests, one and all, look, to the present genera- 
tion of young men as their sole hope and resource. Nothing 
is less a matter of doubt than that these potent agencies, on 
which the well-being of a great nation depends, must speed- 
ily come under the direction of the young men who are now 
forming their character, moral and intellectual, in our schools 
and colleges — many of them wholly unconcerned about that 
future in which they have so deep a stake, and for which they 
will be held to a responsibility so fearful. 

We should place before the youth of this land only a very 
humble standard of duty and ambition in urging them to 
such attainments as will merely enable them to maintain 
these institutions, and social and moral enterprises, in their 
present state of efficiency and usefulness. To do less than 
this would plainly be nothing less than treason against our 
country and common humanity. It cost our fathers infinite 
toil, and sacrifices, and precious blood, to raise this country 
to its present position, and to form such a heritage, orlight, 
and liberty, and glory as they are ready to bequeath to their 
sons ; and that young man must be dead to all high aspira- 
tions who does not burn with shame at the thought of trans- 
mitting it to posterity enfeebled or dilapidated. One or two 
such recreant generations would plunge this free and glori- 
ous land into the darkness and wretchedness of its primitive 
barbarism, and make themselves the reproach of noble an- 
cestors, and the scorn and by- word of history. 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 207 

But the rising generation can not even escape this foul 
dishonor of wasting its inheritance, and betraying the sacred 
interests intrusted to it for the benefit of posterity, without 
high attainments in knowledge and virtue. Our forefathers 
were a brave, intellectual, noble race ; and they who now 
sway the destinies of this country are educated, vigorous, 
laborious, enterprising men. The land is no doubt cursed 
with hordes of demagogues and pretenders, and its honors 
are too often bestowed upon the unworthy and incompetent. 
Still, the great body of our legislators, public officers, and 
professional men, are not deficient either in literary attain- 
ments or intellectual vigor. There is a Vulcanic energy at 
work in our enterprises of science, and fabrication, and in- 
ternal improvement. A mighty intellectual machinery is 
concerned in bringing forth the products of our vast litera- 
ture, periodical and permanent. Many thousands of fine 
minds, and well cultivated, are laboring incessantly and in- 
tensely in our pulpits and schools of learning, to promote the 
moral and mental illumination of the people of this great 
country. We must not undervalue the past, nor complain un- 
justly of the deficiencies of the present time. Our country 
has been made what it is, and is kept up to its actual high 
moral and social position, by the strenuous exertions of im- 
mense capacities and honorable virtues. It will be no easy 
task for our young men to outstrip their predecessors. It 
will even be well for them if they shall be prepared to act 
the part which awaits them without provoking unfavorable 
comparisons — if they shall acquit themselves as well in the 
sight of their country, of history, and of God. 

Something more than this, however, will justly be expect- 
ed of them. It is the glory of the men of the present genera- 
tion that they have improved upon all past ages, and greatly 
enriched and beautified the inheritance which their fathers 
bequeathed them. It will be the undying reproach of their 
successors if this full tide of improvement shall be stayed 



208 EARLY" PIETY THE BASIS OF 

upon their accession to the high places of power and respon- 
sibility. They will enter upon their career with peculiar 
advantages. The accumulations of past ages will be their 
resources for new enterprises. The light of rich and varied 
experiments shines full upon their pathway, and the wonder- 
ful discoveries of the last half century constitute the vantage- 
ground from which they are allowed to commence their new 
career. If, with facilities so many and so great, unknown to 
their predecessors, they shall do no more than maintain the 
actual status of the intelligence, and happiness, and virtue 
of the community, they are destined to act but an inglorious 
part. They ought to contribute to the welfare of society 
such measures of new light, and vivacity, and momentum as 
will quicken and multiply the energies of every meliorating 
enterprise. This is their proper function and vocation, for 
which they should diligently equip themselves, as champions 
whose eyes are already fixed upon the arena of the coming 
conflict. 

The actual state of education, morals, and happiness in a 
community may be regarded as the true expression of the 
uower of the moral and intellectual forces engaged for its im- 
provement. The efficiency and usefulness of a Church, for 
instance, are precisely what the zeal, purity, and intelligence 
of its members make it. We may conclude, therefore, that 
the Christian enterprises of the present time must remain 
stationary, without some new accession of moral resources. 
If the rising generation shall come forward with only the 
same degrees of piety and intelligence that belong to their 
fathers, then the utmost that can be expected is, that the 
cause of religion and humanity shall not retrograde. Prog- 
ress, under the circumstances supposed, is wholly out of the 
question. The Church is now barely able to hold its ground 
against the opposing forces of sin and error, or to advance 
with a tardy step to future triumphs ; and if it is to be re- 
cruited and re-enforced by such members and ministers only 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 209 



as already wield its destinies, it must remain in essentially 
the same condition, while the accession of even a few persons 
of deeper piety, and stronger faith, and larger views, might 
sweep away the obstacles that retard its progress, and open 
a career of unexampled successes A single individual of 
enlarged conceptions of duty, and burning zeal for Christ, is 
sometimes able to communicate new spirit to a whole Church, 
which has, for years, scarcely given a sign of vitality. It. 
had just enough of moral power to maintain a bare ex-istence, 
and resist the pressure from without ; and now the addition- 
al impetus given by one true man of God puts every thing 
in motion, and triumphs over obstacles. What victories, then, 
might we not anticipate, what enlargement for Zion, could 
the whole host of our young men be induced to gird them 
selves with strength, and enter upon the whitening field to 
which they are called with something liks the spirit of prim- 
itive Christianity ? It would be as a new life from the dead. 
It would be as the birth of a new dispensation. They who 
are ready to perish would revive again, and all the islands 
of the sea would rejoice. 

Manifestly it is such a revival of heavenly charity, and 
wisdom, and apostolic zeal, that is imperatively demanded 
by the present condition of our social and Christian enter 
prises. The passing era will ever be recognized in history as 
an age of noble conceptions and of great moral convictions. 
It has planned, and begun to execute, God-like enterprises, 
but it evidently lacks the sinews needful for their success- 
ful accomplishment. It reels under the burdens it has as- 
sumed. The existing race of Christians has propagated sub- 
lime ideas, which it is appointed for their successors to real- 
ize in sublime achievements. This is in accordance with a 
great law. An age of discovery leads in an age of perform- 
ance. First comes the science, and then its applications to 
life. The Church is well furnished with grand ideas. It 
has on its hands comprehensive evangelizing schemes, whose 



210 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 



successful accomplishment will usher in the millennium. 
What she now wants is agents to execute them. She wants 
an army of young men, large-minded and large-hearted, and 
deeply baptized into the Savior's spirit. This is the great 
want, to which all others are subordinate. Let it be supplied, 
and all other obstacles will vanish away. The cause of 
Christ and humanity calls for men — needs men — cultivated, 
sanctified, self-sacrificing, brave men, and it realty wants 
nothing else to the completeness of its triumphs. Material 
resources, with which the Church overflows, only wait for 
the bidding of lips touched with holy fire to call them forth 
for the sacrifice. And now what Christian young man will 
endure the thought, that all these goodly enterprises for the 
improvement and salvation of the race shall fail or languish 
for want of worthy champions ? 

The Church has just now started forth from the ignomin- 
ious repose of centuries, and trembles to recognize itself as 
charged by Christ with the evangelization of the world. 
Shall this work, so nobly begun, fail or languish for want of 
laborers ? Is it tolerable to think of, that the triumph of 
Christ shall be postponed, and the deadly curse of sin con- 
tinue to blight the hopes of three fourths of the human race, 
because we- love our ease and our money, and because our 
young men have shallow piety and huge ambition ? We 
have discovered that the general diffusion of a more thorough 
and effective education is absolutely indispensable for -a self- 
governing people, and that whatever else our republic has 
or lacks, the preservation of freedom and happiness without 
this great reform is an impossibility. The work is already 
begun, and the means for its extension and completion are at 
least partially provided. Will our young men accept of this 
holy trust at the hands of their fathers ? Are they ready to 
offer themselves for a service equally commended to their fa- 
vor by religion and by patriotism ? Good men, who are yet 
alive, were the first to know and proclaim that the exhilar- 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 211 



ating bowl, which fashion had long made indispensable in 
the high places of society, and appetite had made the tyrant 
and the scourge of common life — which was fondly kissed by 
ruby lips, and inspired the eloquence of grave ecclesiastics, 
is an accursed, poisoned chalice, which has drugged our peo- 
ple with disease, and vice, and damning guilt. This fearful 
truth had nearly succeeded in penetrating the heart of our 
population, and making its lodgment in. the public conscience, 
when, through the weariness of some of its advocates, and 
the indiscretions of others, the apathy of the Church, and the 
sleepless eflorts of interested dealers, their deluded victims, 
and demagogue abettors, a paralyzing reaction has befallen 
the great enterprise, and the polluting cup is again brought 
forth from its hiding-place — again sparkles at the feast, and 
maddens the joyous circle of our youth. Are our educated 
young men prepared to preach up another crusade, and 
march in the van of another holy war against this worse 
than the false prophet ? Our own favored land, and the en- 
tire Christian world, unquestionably labor under great and 
grievous social evils. Our intense and highly artificial civ- 
ilization does, in some of its modes and operations, press with 
dreadful and almost exterminating severity upon the happi- 
ness, the hopes, and the virtues of large classes of the people. 
Ignorant quacks, and interested pretenders and demagogues, 
are every where prescribing absurd and pernicious remedies 
for this inveterate disease. Religion and education possess 
the true panacea, and they would enlist an army of valiant, 
wise philanthropists in an enterprise which must fail in or- 
dinary hands. Are our young men ready for this good work 
also ? Will this call to holy duties be able to make itself 
heard amid the incitements to selfishness and ambition which 
throng the avenues to professional arid public life. 

For the satisfaction of these, and other moral and social 
wants, which press so heavily upon our country and the hu- 
man race, intelligent, pious young men are at this moment 



212 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

the only adequate resource. Others, who have a heart foi 
such work, are already occupied, and their energies are al- 
ready fully tasked in maintaining these great moral enter- 
prises in their actual state of advancement. They look to 
the young for the succor without which reaction and igno- 
minious retrogression will be unavoidable. They boldly con- 
front the foe and keep him at bay, while, with every muscle 
strained, they beckon to their sons to " come and help them." 
Young men alone can be fully adapted to the special exi- 
gencies of their own times. Those who have been long en- 
gaged in any department of action acquire habits favorable 
to success in their particular pursuit, which often become dis- 
qualifications under a change of circumstances or for new 
enterprises. The middle-aged pastor will generally be found 
essentially unfit for the new duties and ideas of missionary 
life. He can not learn strange languages, and inure himself 
to new climates and modes of life. The young man, on the 
contrary, has nothing to unlearn. He is pliable and plastic, 
ready to be molded into any form of physical and mental ac- 
tivity which the exigencies of the times may demand. When 
the French Revolution had brought on a crisis in human af- 
fairs unknown in the world's previous history, old statesmen 
and old generals were found universally unfit for the new ex 
igency, and supreme power, civil and military, passed, as if 
in obedience to some hidden law, to the vigorous hands of 
Napoleon, and Pitt, and Talleyrand, and Wellington, all 
young men, who took their character from the crisis, and in 
their turn impressed it upon the times. Several of our great 
benevolent enterprises, which are rapidly extending their in- 
fluences to the remotest nations of the earth, were projected 
by young men, while they were still under-graduates ; and 
Mills, and Judson, and Newell passed immediately from the 
schools into the distant lands where they laid the foundations 
of Christian empires. Young men have usually been Heav- 
en's chosen depositaries of new and great ideas, and its cho 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 213 

sen instruments for effecting beneficent revolutions. They 
soonest hear, and most deeply feel, the appeals of suffering 
humanity, and their character most readily conforms itself 
to the hue and pressure of their era. 

For*prudent counsels and the conduct of grave negotia- 
tions, for the conservation of holy truths and time-honored 
institutions, for the safe management of the great trusts and 
established interests of human society, we are to look to the 
serene, unimpassioned wisdom of more advanced life ; but 
new and difficult enterprises, and daring moral adventures 
that are without precedent in the memory of the aged, must, 
for the most part, expect to enlist their champions from the 
ranks of buoyant, unhackneyed youth. This is eminently 
the period of mental and bodily vigor and power. The warm 
blood courses bravely through the veins, and every limb and 
muscle rejoices in action. The bosom swells with high hopes, 
which disappointment has not yet chilled with its paralyzing 
touch. The young are wont to place confidence in man, in 
human improvement, in truth, and in the power of endeav- 
or. Experience has not yet made them timid, nor broken 
the spirit of adventure. The future rises up before them 
gorgeous with rich promise, and opulent in hidden resources. 
Religion chastens, but it does not dim these vivid conceptions 
and lofty aspirations of the young. Very often, indeed, the 
discoveries of faith far outstrip and outshine the visions of 
fancy ; and what was sheer extravagance in the expectations 
of the natural man, becomes an object of sober and reasona- 
ble pursuit with him who has received an endowment of 
strength from on high. It is a great point gained when we 
can get young men, constitutionally prone to adventure and 
activity, who love labor, and fear nothing — whose bounding 
hearts impel them onward, as if conscious that to will and to 
achieve were tasks equally practicable — it is a great thing to 
get all these elements of efficiency fairly embarked in some 
holy enterprise, in which the smallest degrees of success might 



214 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

satisfy the most ardent ambition, and the grandeur and cer- 
tainty of whose triumphs can sustain the spirit of -man under 
all the vicissitudes of hope deferred. Here is found precisely 
that conjunction of circumstances which is most favorable to 
the highest development of the best qualities of the heart 
and the intellect. The inspiration of an object divinely sub- 
lime, and yet in closest contact with all the benevolent feel' 
ings ; the prospect of a glorious reward, acting without preju- 
dice to conscious, disinterested philanthropy — infallible guar- 
antees of ultimate, complete success — offer a combination of 
motives that can not fail to exalt the human powers to their 
utmost capacity, and even to make ordinary men great. 

In addition to the inspiration of ennobling pursuits acting 
upon the plastic nature and fervent temperament of fresh 
and buoyant life, Christianity furnishes to young men other 
and peculiar elements of strength. " The towel of God abicl- 
eth in them," and they are thus supplied, from the beginning 
of their career, with rules of action and maxims of life per- 
fectly adapted to all their circumstances and wants. It is 
not necessary to prove that the Bible, which is the expres- 
sion of Divine wisdom, announces to man the true method 
of life. It contains the mind of God, and makes known to 
us the decisions of the highest intelligence. In all matters 
of high moral import, it reveals to us, in anticipation of experi- 
ence, those great practical lessons which can not be learned 
elsewhere, if at all, but by years of careful observation and 
laborious experiment. "Wisdom acquired by methods so tedi- 
ous and expensive, usually comes too late for any valuable 
purpose, after life has been exhausted in fruitless, misdirect- 
ed endeavors, and its energies have been impaired, and the 
heart saddened by discouragement and discomfiture. Life 
commenced and prosecuted under the infallible guidance of 
the Divine oracles, escapes all such retarding influences. Its 
movements begin in the right direction. Its energies are 
saved from the wear and the waste of unsuccessful essays 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 215 

and of an endless empiricism. The character early acquires 
compactness and solidity, and that momentum which is de- 
rived from fixedness of purpose and singleness of heart. 

There is great advantage, also, in the Divine authority of 
the rules which religion prescrihes for the conduct of life. 
Its announcements are so many of the decrees of Jehovah, 
of which it is not in human folly to question the wisdom, 
and to which nothing short of absolute madness could hope 
to offer successful resistance. Obedience, therefore, becomes 
the highest dictate of reason as well as of conscience. All 
the interests of time and eternity are involved in a frank, 
earnest concurrence with these expressions of the Divine will. 
After God has spoken, there are no doubtful questions to set- 
tle — no wavering probabilities for scrutiny and adjustment. 
It only remains for those who have heard His voice to gird up 
their loins and hasten to the accomplishment of an appointed 
task. It must be obvious to the slightest reflection how much 
the business of life is simplified by this authoritative settle- 
ment of doubtful questions, and the subordination of all its 
pursuits to one controlling principle. They who choose to 
follow other guides, necessarily lose this powerful element of 
efficiency. They must often hesitate in the choice of their 
rules of action — they must often falter in the pursuits to 
which they finally devote themselves, and often fail in the 
attainment of their objects, through the insufficiency of world- 
ly motives to sustain untiring activity. They hang in equi- 
poise, while others, obedient to the Divine law-giver, advance 
in the race. They stop to reconsider where the demand is 
strongest for accelerated motion. They find the incentives 
to which they have yielded up the direction of life too feeble 
to sustain them. They doubt, under the pressure of toil and 
weariness, whether they have not consulted ambition and 
avarice at the sacrifice of higher interests — whether they 
may not have thought too little of the claims of repose, or 
too highly of reputation. They discover too late some lack 



216 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

— — j . 

of congeniality for the scenes or society upon which, they have 
been precipitated by levity, or pride, or indolence. Above 
all, will the thought that God is not in all their schemes, and 
that they tend to an issue upon which Heaven's blessing has 
never been asked nor promised, often obtrude itself, to relax 
the sinews of effort, and even to sadden the triumphs of suc- 
cess, Such misgivings are most likely to come upon the mind 
in its days of doubt and despondency, when the hand is trem- 
ulous and the heart faint. Just then it is that the Chris- 
tian most feels the support of his principles. " The word of 
God abideth in him," and he travels on "from strength to 
strength." It is his infallible counselor in a time of perplex- 
ity. It assures him of deliverance from all dangers and all 
disasters. It sustains him most completely when all other 
supports confess their insufficiency. Its light is most intense 
in the darkest day, and it raises the loudest notes of victory 
when its devoted champions are borne on their shields from 
the mortal conflict. 

The Christian young man gains another element of efn 
ciency in the permanence of the influences under which his 
character is formed — "the word of God abideth in him." 
From youth to old age, through all of life's changes, he walks 
by the same unerring light. His eye is fixed upon one ob- 
ject. His pursuits obey one great law, and all tend to a com- 
mon grand result. Life's entire energies are concentrated 
upon a point which becomes henceforth the goal of all his 
efforts and aspirations. Lower worldly maxims lose their 
force and application with the progress and mutations of 
time. The appetite becomes sated with enjoyment or par- 
alyzed by age. Disappointment, or the sober second thought 
of experience, dissipates the illusions of ambition. Hardly 
any worldly motive but avarice, confessedly the lowest and 
the worst, is accustomed to maintain its sway to the close 
of life. Failure, or change in the ruling principle, necessa- 
rily destroys unity and continuity of action ; and enterprises 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 217 

begun in the thoughtlessness of youth, are abandoned as 
hopeless or unworthy by sober manhood. The tastes fluctu- 
ate. Imagination refuses any longer to gild the phantom 
with which it at first seduced the unwary. With these 
changes come changes of purpose, and even middle life finds 
itself unsettled and wavering, shorn of its strength in its very 
prime and unwasted vigor ; while the latter days of an irre- 
ligious life are almost invariably tasteless, unsatisfactory, and 
to all the higher ends of existence absolutely useless. Such 
a hfe has, and can have, no pervading unity. Its efforts are 
unsteady and fitful, as they needs must be from the variable 
and conflicting impulses of which they are the result. How 
different the history of him who has chosen God for his por- 
tion in early life, and made the Divine will his one rule of 
action ! " The word of God, which abideth in him," is " quick 
and powerful," and ministers an unfailing supply of living, 
powerful resources. It has a rule of action and a ministra- 
tion of strong impulses for each period and exigency of our 
earthly existence. Buoyant youth and sober manhood it 
links together in an indissoluble unity of interest, and hope, 
and effort ; and it quickens the slow pulses of hoaiy age with 
prospects more radiant and exhilarating than ever rose before 
the visions of childhood. Now it is chiefly in this steady and 
unfaltering devotion of the entire life to a single object that 
we are to look for the secret of all eminent success. It was 
to this continuity and intensity of effort in a single direction, 
rather than to any special attributes of genius, that Davy, 
and Cuvier, and others, were indebted for their eminent 
achievements in science. For the production of great char- 
acters or great actions, there is wanted the early adoption of 
some worthy object of pursuit — its steady prosecution through 
all the vicissitudes of life — and an earnest, fervent tempera- 
ment, which stirs old age itself with living impulses. How 
completely religion, embraced in early life, satisfies these in- 
dispensable conditions, we have already seen. 

K 



218 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

The presence and supremacy of Divine truth, which per- 
vades the life with an influence so benignant, and produces 
such strength of character and efficiency of action, performs 
for the young another function very noticeable and import- 
ant. It offers itself as a guide and counsellor at a period of 
life when there exists the strongest indisposition to listen to 
human advisers, and when submission to human authority 
is often deemed incompatible with a manly independence. 
This tendency to revolt against the admonitions of age and 
experience is among the most unaccountable of the charac- 
teristics of young persons, especially of those who are early 
removed from parental control. Every teacher finds in it a 
chief obstacle in the way of a satisfactory discharge of his 
duties, and it often proves a fatal barrier to that moral and 
mental culture which is the proper business of education. 
Our reference here is not to that reckless folly peculiar to low 
and vicious dispositions, which makes a pastime of perpetra- 
ting petty crimes and violating good order, and slides into vul- 
gar profligacy through the spontaneous tendencies of a base 
and intractable nature. Youths of a more ingenuous charac- 
ter, by no means deficient in good impulses and manly aspira- 
tions, often fall into the delusion of regarding obedience, and 
all manifestations of deference for age and authority, as. some 
reflection upon their dignity, and an indication of a tame and 
timid spirit. They place their point of honor in violating 
the order which would protect their retired hours from in- 
trusion, and in contemning the solicitude and counsels that 
would encourage and guide to mental improvement, and con- 
serve their moral sentiments and character. They avoid, as 
a reproach and a stigma, all suspicion of recognizing the re- 
straints and reverencing the ordinances of religion. They are 
ashamed of having it thought that they bear with them some 
respect for the holy influences of home recollections and sym- 
pathies — some tender remembrance of mother and sisters — 
some dutiful reverence for the authority and instructions of a 
father. 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 219 

This false honor and false shame too often tyrannize over 
conscience and the heart — prove too strong for the love of 
knowledge and distinction — too strong for the restraints of 
law and morality. I have seen fine young men, endowed 
with genius and high aspirations, in whom this absurd, un- 
natural controversy with their own real sentiments, as well 
as interests, had assumed the form of a monomania, directed 
against every influence solicitous to promote their well-being 
and restrain them from recklessness. More distressing cases 
never occur than such as leave no power for good but in a 
rigid exercise of authority — a remedy little adapted to cure, 
though it may sometimes restrain the folly which so pertina- 
ciously revolts against influence, and thinks it dishonor to 
listen to good advice. Religion offers the only remedy, and, 
in certain temperaments, the early inculcation of its princi- 
ples constitutes the only preventive of the unmanageable evil 
under consideration. The fear of God, once established in 
the mind, will often prove an effectual antidote to the bad 
independence which denies respect to age and allegiance to 
authority. The most vaulting ambition may not deem it a 
degradation to do homage to Jehovah. The perverted sen- 
timent of honor which spurns the advice of teacher and par- 
ent, may yet acknowledge that God's counsels are worthy of 
some respect. The pride that can not stoop to confess a fault 
or to avow purposes of amendment, may consent to bow in 
submission to an authority which is confessedly supreme, and 
to do homage to a power too high to provoke envy or to tol- 
erate disobedience. 

The revival of early religious impressions has saved 
many a reckless youth, who obstinately refused to be guided 
by any human authority or influence. The dupes of bad ex- 
ample and perverted sentiments of honor sometimes discover, 
with surprise, that their awakened deference for Divine au- 
thority has, without provoking jealousy or wounding their 
self-love, brought them into perfect harmony with laws and 



220 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

restraints against which it had been their pride and their 
business to wage perpetual war. It may be affirmed, with- 
out qualification, that there is always hope for a young man 
in whom the great truths of religion have made an early 
lodgment. They have a tenacity of life beyond what we 
are accustomed to think of. " The word of God abideth" in 
the instructed son of Christian parents, and makes disclo- 
sure of its latent energies at times and in ways which we 
]east of all anticipate. It whispers good counsel, and utters 
notes of warning in hearts apparently dead to its influences, 
and itno ears contemptuously closed against the most faithful 
admonitions. How often have our unbelieving fears in re- 
gard to thoughtless, reckless youth, been signally rebuked by 
their sudden and unexpected conversion ! How often have 
we seen the graces of a backslidden young man revived 
again after years of neglect and apparent indifference to Di- 
vine things ! If we are compelled to admit that some cast 
off the restraints of early education, and even of a religious 
profession, and apparently "make shipwreck of their faith," 
we are also bound to acknowledge, for the honor of Divine 
grace, that a large proportion of them turn again to righteous- 
ness. Some good, reviving influence from heaven visits them. 
Some array of affecting circumstances — some hour like this, 
when tender remembrances come up to mingle with the fears 
and hopes of the future — perhaps the thoughtfulness which 
an actual entrance upon serious, active life forces upon them, 
is made the occasion of a recurrence to holy first principles. 
The slumbering elements of eternal truth then awaken into 
new life. Repudiated conscience trembles into new con- 
sciousness and power. The tender associations of childhood 
and home — the mother's tear — the family altar — the joyous, 
holy experiences of Christian fellowship and heavenly hopes, 
rise up before the soul's eye with the energy of a Divine res- 
urrection. All honor to the powerful word, which through 
so many dark months and years slept, but did not die, in 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 221 

these returning souls. " The word of God abideth in them," 
and is likely, some day, to make its power known. So strong 
is the svidence of past experience on this point, that I always 
expect young men, who have been piously trained, to be con- 
verted. I expect to hear, if I do not personally witness it, 
that they who for a time yielded to worldly influences and 
strong temptations, to the dishonor of their Christian profes- 
sion, have returned again to Zion with songs ; and my reli- 
ance for all this is in the vitality and Divine potency of " the 
word of God." They may reject it altogether, but I rather 
expect impressions so early, so deep, and so divine, to remain 
permanent and effectual for saving ends. 

Christian young men have won, through the Gospel, anoth- 
er victory. They have " overcome the wicked one." He 
secures a mighty advantage for life's entire career, who, at 
the outset, solves the great problem of his existence. The 
conflict between good and evil, in which the greater number 
of men pass all their days on earth, has formed a fruitful 
theme for moralists and theologians, Pagan and Christian, 
ever since the phenomena of man's intellectual and moral 
nature became objects of research and observation. Some of 
the earlier Christian sects, as well as some schools of hea- 
then philosophy, believed in the existence of two great princi- 
ples, a good and an evil .principle, engaged in a perpetual 
conflict for dominion over the universe and in the heart of 
man. Human life was exhausted in this terrible struggle, 
and its happiness or misery was very exactly proportioned to 
the relative ascendency of these warring elements. The un- 
decided strife was thought to be often transferred to a future 
state of being, when other ages of undefined duration were 
spent by the soul in struggling onward to its ultimate des- 
tiny. This theory expresses very accurately the usual his- 
tory of man's interior life. It does not exaggerate the fierce- 
ness of the protracted contest here, and only errs when it con- 
cedes to the hapless victim of an unequal fate another trial 



222 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

beyond the boundaries of the present life. The Gospel adopts 
this idea of human life in a modified form. The sore conflict 
is carried on, not between two demons, but between God's 
holy law and the sinful dispositions of man. It may be pro- 
longed to the hour of death, but no " device or work" is done 
in the region beyond. It may be brought to a successful ter- 
mination in early life, and even " young men" have often 
" overcome the wicked one." The true Christian idea of 
this inner conflict is expressed by St. Paul : " The flesh lust- 
eth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." Ear- 
ly piety puts an end to this doubtful strife, and leaves the 
young man free to enter, with an undivided heart, and un- 
tainted principles, upon the high moral vocation to which his 
whole existence is consecrated, with no evil habits to unlearn 
— no counteracting forces to resist — no internal insurrections 
to suppress beyond the infirmities of a fallen, but renovated 
nature. A career of virtue and usefulness, commenced un- 
der such auspices, has the fairest promise of certain, emi- 
nent, complete success. Whoever begins life without a set- 
tlement of this great preliminary question, with an unsub- 
dued enemy ambushing his every step, has but two possible 
alternatives before him. He must either yield himself unre- 
sistingly to the foe, and consent to the forfeiture of his life's 
great ends, or, what is more usual, spend his resources in an 
endless, bootless conflict, under conditions that render victory 
impossible, and deprive partial success of all its value. He 
writhes in a consuming fire, which, though sometimes smoth- 
ered, is never extinguished. He never " overcomes the wick- 
ed one," nor ever attempts so much, but only to keep him at 
bay. He is, consequently, forever in the midst of the conflict 
of appetite and passion, but never clears his path of enemies 
farther onward, than he can reach with the point of his 
sword. His life is spent in alternately rolling up the stone 
of Sisyphus, and starting back from its inevitable recoil. As 
-ae does not aim at being a thoroughly good man, real im- 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 223 

provement is impossible, and partial reforms only serve to 
mark his varying gradations in vice. Meantime, his moral 
diathesis becomes more and more deplorable, by the lowering 
of his principles, by the growing obtuseness of his moral sen- 
timents, and by the imperceptible formation of habits that 
strengthen the tendency to evil by something like the sanc- 
tion of an organic law. The sort of moral progress which 
we are attempting to portray is illustrated by familiar phe- 
nomena of a student's life. 

The ingenuous youth, who holds himself obliged in con- 
science, and in all manliness, to make the best use of his op- 
portunities for improvement, soon finds the performance of 
his duties easy and agreeable. Every day's industry and 
perseverance add to the facility and comfort of his progress, 
and be speedily attains to such feelings and habits that it 
would cost him a struggle to omit a duty. An hour spent 
in sleep, which ought to be devoted to improvement, wounds 
his self-respect, and really becomes a source of more annoy- 
ance than all the mental efforts of a month's toil in the study 
and the recitation-room. Such a student, it is obvious, must 
soon find himself within the range and action of impulses that 
insure the highest mental improvement, while they quite dis- 
arm all petty temptations to indolence and irregularity. An- 
other enters upon the scholastic career with lower, though 
not with dishonorable aims. He satisfies his sense of obli- 
gation and self-respect by such a performance of scholastic 
tasks, and such attention to order, as may leave a conven- 
ient margin for self-indulgence, and yet not be quite incom- 
patible with proficiency and respectability. This theory of 
the student-life seldom fails to produce in practice an abun- 
dant growth of evils, and to lead to the ultimate forfeiture 
of the chief benefits of education. As some duties are to be 
neglected, each, in its turn, becomes a candidate for repudi- 
ation. As some liberties are to be taken, the mind is thrown 
upon the comparison of all minor irregularities, in order to 



224 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

make its selections judicious in number and kind — in time 
and degree. A few months passed under the auspices of such 
a code of scholastic morals usually stamp their complexion 
upon the whole college-life. The indolence and the irregu- 
larity, from being occasional, become habitual. They come 
to he regarded as privileges and enjoyments, and studious in- 
dustry a burden and a bondage. "What can be wrested from 
the claims of industry and order is won for pleasure and so- 
cial enjoyments ; the rest is a painful sacrifice to necessity. 
In the end, the performance of duty inflicts a pang, and the 
period of education becomes a weariness to the flesh, too often 
a preparatory discipline for an unsuccessful, unhonored subse- 
quent career. 

An illustration borrowed from moral, rather than mental 
aberrations, inculcates the same lesson in another form. A 
young man leaves the safeguards of home and of parental su- 
pervision, alive to all the seductions that beset his new and 
exposed career, and ambitious of forming a pure and lofty 
character. It is a wise, and not an unusual measure of pre- 
caution which he adopts, when he arms himself with high 
resolves, and sometimes with a formal pledge, against every 
approach toward deadly evils, from which he is purposed to 
keep his morals pure. From every circle and every incite- 
ment which might lead to the violation of his vow, he stands 
aloof, and writes accursed upon every inebriating cup. In 
this position he stands secure, defended by an impregnable 
bulwark. He "has overcome the wicked one" by a single 
manly resolve. Appetite itself quails before decision of pur- 
pose, and the brave youth pursues the quiet tenor of his way, 
hardly more exposed to the vice of intemperance than to 
commit theft or suicide. His associate is skeptical in regard 
to the danger, and scorns the cowardly precaution against 
himself. He does not intend to be intemperate, and still less 
tc betray a suspicion of the strength of his own virtue. He 
will naturally test the value of his reserved rights by their 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 225 

occasional exercise. Bashfully at first, infrequently, stealth- 
ily, and only on fit occasions, and in reputable company, does 
he become initiated into mysteries over which not songs and 
merry conceits alone shall be poured forth, but bitter tears 
and unavailing penitence. The restraints, meantime, which 
respect for public opinion or the dread of exposure imposes, 
and the reproaches of a condemning conscience, constitute a 
serious drawback upon the pleasure of unlawful indulgence, 
while the ever-sinking scale of virtue, which honor, fear, and 
shame incite him to uphold, is maintained at its actual ele- 
vation by efforts of self-denial a thousand times more diffi- 
cult and painful than it would cost to smite down the demon 
appetite, and at once deliver the falling spirit from its degrad- 
ing bondage. 

It should be remembered, too, that this struggle to keep 
out of the lower depths of degrading vices by those who, in 
spite of all warning, resolve to disport themselves along the 
steep declivities that lead to the inevitable abyss, is not a 
struggle for virtue, nor entitled to any of its immunities or 
rewards. Every manly effort to break away from the power 
of a bad habit, and ascend to the dignity of a pure life, is likely 
to improve the moral sentiments, and evolve some new moral 
force. Such an attempt, made in the integrity of the sou], 
always has in it a redeeming element, and even unsuccessful 
efforts, a thousand times repeated in the same spirit, never 
wholly lose their virtuous character. But he who proposes 
to do homage to honesty, or temperance, or chastity, or truth, 
or any other virtue, to a certain extent only, commits a crime 
against all real virtue by the hybrid conception. He fairly 
takes upon his conscience the guilt of all the degrees of vice 
from which a selfish prudence alone restrains him ; and we 
may be sure that he only waits to obtain the consent of some 
low interest, or to secure guarantees or indemnity against some 
anticipated injury, in order to do all the evil from which any 
motive lower than the fear of God and the love of righteous- 

K2 



226 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

ness now restrains him. Of all the villainies committed un- 
der the sun, we most indignantly condemn the cautious, well 
considered devices of a cool, forecasting man, who aims to se- 
cure just so many of the gains of dishonesty as he can, and 
escape the disgrace and the penalty of detection. The mo- 
rality of this righteous judgment is justly applicable to all 
those whose theory of life allows them to stop in the career 
of virtue whenever it becomes too rough and arduous, and to 
drink of the cup of vice till they get too strong a taste of its 
nauseous or its poisonous dregs. These are bad men — not 
only to the full extent of all the virtues which they discard 
on vicious principles, but also by the full measure of those 
which they practice from low and corrupt motives — not only 
to the extent of all the vices in which they unscrupulously 
indulge, but also by the whole number and degree of those 
which their hearts approve, and from which they reluctantly 
refrain from no higher sentiment than cowardice or cunning. 
In the sight of God and of sound ethics, there is no such thing 
as partial virtue or piety in the man who has resolved to re- 
serve to himself the practice of certain degrees of vice or sin, 
such as he may deem consistent with convenience or a good 
name. It is, no doubt, highly expedient to sin with modera- 
tion. Unlawful pleasure may be prolonged by subtracting 
some degrees from its intensity. They who never even as- 
pire to "overcome the wicked one," may have good reasons 
for subjecting his acknowledged authority to certain limita- 
tions ; but the compact that imposes these checks, and settles 
the conditions, betrays collusion with the foe, and is treason 
against God. True virtue and piety begin when all compro- 
mises with sin are at an end, and when the soul has pledged 
itself to unconditional obedience and devotion. Life begun 
and prosecuted under the sanction of so high a consecration, 
can not prove a failure. Dark days may lower over its path 
way. Sore struggles may be appointed as tests of sincerity, 
and for the discipline of those who aspire to do the bidding 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 227 

of God in a higher sphere, but for ultimate discomfiture 
there is no place in such a career. The spirit in which the 
enterprise is conceived is a pledge of success. Its lofty aims 
brings it into alliance with unfailing Divine resources. 

In passing on to apply some of the practical lessons sug- 
gested by this discussion, I shall transpose the order of its 
topics, and accept my first theme of exhortation from the 
conclusion of the argument. 

I. " Overcome the icicked one. 1 ' Lay the foundation of 
success in all the moral and intellectual enterprises to which 
conscience and your own generous aspirations invite you in a 
decisive, unqualified, instantaneous renunciation of every bad 
or doubtful habit, and in a brave, unreserved, immediate, life- 
long devotion to every virtue and every duty to which you 
are held by any obligation, divine or human. To young 
men, far more than to middle life or old age, is applicable 
that startling passage of Holy Scripture, " Behold, now is the 
accepted time ; behold, noiv is the day of salvation." Gen- 
uine conversions are always sudden. Visible progress in vir- 
tue may be slow, and its beginning inappreciable ; but the 
hour which witnesses the entrance of the new principle, and 
plants the germ of a new life, constitutes a well-defined era 
in the moral history of a man, as well as a memorable crisis 
in his moral character. The vacillations that precede, and 
the struggles that sometimes follow the moment consecrated 
by high resolves and heavenly grace, may be remembered as 
parts of the same period of doubtfulness and darkness, but 
they are historically distinct, and lie on opposite sides of the 
great turning-point in character and destiny. Whoever would 
reform his life, and " turn from the power of Satan unto God," 
must begin by having faith in his own deliberate purpose, 
formed in the fear of the Lord, and in reliance upon heaven- 
ly grace. Such a purpose is the starting-place of every suc- 
cessful enterprise of virtue and improvement. Let the young 
man who aspires to become either virtuous or wise, take hia 



228 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

position on this high vantage-ground. Let him inquire if he 
has not brought with him thus far some unsatisfied convic- 
tions of duty, and purposes of reform and improvement which 
as yet have found no realization in the daily life. "We need 
not admonish him that the tendency, the error, the sin, which 
now has but a feeble hold upon him, and will readily yield 
to the corrective force of virtuous resolution and manly effort, 
speedily makes for itself an impregnable stronghold in the 
inveteracy of habit, and is thus enabled to bid defiance to all 
ordinary reformatory endeavors. These incipient vices make 
haste to expand into prolific sources of evil, and to pour their 
polluting streams into the tide of life. It has long been 
with me an established opinion, that the majority of educa- 
ted men pass through life shorn of half their strength for 
want of a symmetrical, well-expressed mental and moral 
development. Hardly less considerable is the proportion of 
young men engaged in a career of education, who forfeit its 
chief benefits, and go forth unfurnished for the demands of 
life, just because they will not be at the pains of correcting 
petty faults before they become habits, and of forming a vir- 
tuous, manly, vigorous character at the only time when such 
an achievement is possible. Some minds pertinaciously re- 
sist all attempts to ingraft more liberal ideas and elevated 
sentiments, more refined tastes and more graceful manners, 
upon their original stock. No skill or assiduity of the teach- 
er is able even to eliminate the provincialisms and vulgar- 
isms of their spoken and written language, to correct an un- 
natural tone, or reform an ungainly attitude or gesture. No 
friendly converse can lure them away from the deteriorating, 
vulgarizing associations and affinities to which they yield up 
body and. soul from the moment they cross the threshold of a 
place of education. A few weeks or a few months of vigi- 
lant self-inspection and yielding docility, of vigorous resolution 
and manly effort, are sufficient to correct such faults and 
supply such deficiencies, and to purify the literary neophyte 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 229 

from the grosser elements derived from careless training or 
unfortunate associations; but this is a price which he can 
not be induced to offer for improvements indispensable alike 
to success and respectability in his chosen career. 

I dwell the more at large upon this lower and less im- 
portant aspect of a great practical evil, not only because I 
would make manifest the baleful tendency of an error into 
which many fall with little forethought of consequences, but 
because we have here a palpable and unsuspected illustra- 
tion of its higher moral bearings. We readily condemn the 
folly of the reckless youth who resolves to carry with him 
into life all the bad tastes, and vulgar sentiments, and coarse 
manners, and low habits which he brought to college, as 
well as all that the worst associations of a college can im- 
part to him. "What shall we say, then, of him who, with 
equal levity, passes through this forming period, not of life 
only, but of being, disfigured with moral blemishes, and mak- 
ing no effort to deliver the soul from the vicious habitudes 
and hateful malformations that are to be the burden and dis 
honor of its entire existence ? It is by temptations as feeble, 
and for indulgences as worthless, as any that ever blinded 
and enthralled the victim of indolence and degrading im- 
pulses, that many a thoughtful and high-minded young man 
consents to a forfeiture of all good hopes, and thwarts the 
great designs of Heaven's mercy in behalf of his soul: It is 
because he will not allow grave care to cloud the enjoyments 
and disturb the occupations of the present moment, that he 
goes on from year to year preferring dreams to realities. It 
is because he lacks the nerve to interfere with illusions which 
he knows can only deceive and ruin him, that he madly tri- 
fles with imperishable interests, and braves whatever there 
may be of danger in God's wrath, when provoked to the ut- 
termost by a guilty man. Who can hope to break the spell 
by which " the wicked one" holds such a man in vile du- 
rance ? Who, to gain his audience for the sober lessons of 



230 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

truth ? And yetjie must pause and think — he must struggle 
and break his hands asunder — he must smite his enemy with 
a deadly stroke, or prepare for evils which an archangel's 
intellect can not compute. This series of postponements 
must soon be exhausted, and that last hour come in which 
even prayer and a soul-struggle can not be of any avail. Un- 
der such conditions, it is not like a man to shrink from this 
inevitable crisis. Young man, fear to plunge into life with 
life's great problem unsolved. You venture out upon a bot- 
tomless sea with a millstone hung about your neck. Subdue 
the enemy within your own bosom, and then may you go 
with a whole and a brave heart into the great conflict before 
you. You would be strong, valiant men, fit for worthy en- 
terprises. Begin this great conflict of life by trampling Sa- 
tan under your feet. Make alliances with God, and holy 
men, and good angels, and you shall win the field. To-day, 
if ye hear His voice — to-day, if you will be wise or strong, 
" harden not your heart." 

II. Let the word of God abide in you. Treasure it up 
in your heart as an unspeakably precious deposit. God hath 
bestowed upon you no better gift. It is the expression of His 
own ineffable wisdom. He sent you into this world of trial 
a stranger and a pilgrim ; and this is the infallible guide 
which he ordained for your safety and salvation. Follow it 
implicitly. Obey it reverently. Listen to the oracles Divine 
with profound, absolute devotion. To profess faith in the 
Bible as the veritable word of Jehovah, and, at the same 
time, to withhold obedience, involves a gross inconsistency 
peculiarly unworthy of a rational, intelligent man. Without 
dwelling further upon the moral aspects of such a delinquen- 
cy, we commend a reverent and habitual recognition of the 
" word of God" as the source of mental power, and an incom- 
parable auxiliary to great intellectual achievements. It has 
been said, most erroneously, by a great ethical writer, that 
when a course of right action has become habitual, it is no 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 231 

matter how soon the reasons for its adoption are forgotten. 
On the contrary, it is a radical defect in mere habitual vir- 
tue, that it speedily degenerates into dull, irksome routine, 
and gradually loses the vitality and earnestness which % arc 
essential to all high performance. For this paralyzing ten- 
dency there is in most constitutions no remedy hut what may 
be supplied by the power and permanence of the actuating 
motive. So long as the mind is kept under the influence of 
strong and predominating considerations and interests, its en- 
ergies are likely to be kept in full play, and neither habit nor 
old age can dry up the sources of its vigor and activity. We 
knoAV of no mental habitude more favorable to the full de- 
velopment and lasting efficiency of the intellectual powers 
than that of keeping the soul in perpetual, conscious com- 
munion with its highest sources of activity. It is an inspir- 
ing, as well as a hallowing thought, that we are performing 
a part assigned to us by the Divine wisdom, and in accord- 
ance with God's own specific directions. Something* of a 
Divine influence, we had almost said of the divinity itself, 
rests upon and pervades that mind which derives its maxims, 
and imbibes its spirit from Heaven's living oracles. "Who- 
soever drinketh of this water shall never thirst — it shall be 
in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life." 
Once enthroned as the supreme arbiter of human pursuits, 
the word of God is able completely to harmonize the soul's 
jarring, conflicting impulses, and to bring the emotional and 
moral nature of man into fraternal alliance and co-operation 
with the understanding. The sublime principles and sub- 
limer hopes which it supplies become incorporated with a 
new life, of which every purpose, and plan, and effort is in- 
stinct with a power more than human. The indwelling 
monitor, heeded thoughtfully and reverently obeyed, grows 
to be the source of all genial aspirations and joys, as well as 
of authority. Obedience to such a rule of life, begun early, 
and carried out in all of life's pursuits, consciously and cor- 



232 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OP 

dially, inspires our entire earthly career with something like 
the buoyancy and freshness of perpetual youth. It supplies 
an antidote for distaste and discouragement — it supplies all 
needful resources against the day of defeat or disaster, by 
making God a partner and co-worker in all our enterprises. 
It is the only expedient known either to philosophy or expe- 
rience for furnishing with an adequate supply of cheering, 
invigorating motive, the rapidly approaching period of sere 
and sapless old age. The young man in whom the word of 
God abideth and reigneth has discovered the fabled herb 
which bids away the fell disease of age, and beautifies and 
refreshes the soul with perpetual youth. " He shall be like 
a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his 
fruit in his season ; his leaf also shall not wither, and what- 
soever he doeth shall prosper." 

III. Finally. " I have ivritten unto you, young men, be- 
cause ye are strong.'" Bodily and mental vigor belong to the 
young, as physical attributes. Their energies are fresh and 
unwasted. They plan courageously, and execute with a 
strong hand. These are spontaneous tendencies of youth, 
and they indicate very intelligibly the duties of this period, 
so important in the'history of human life. " Rejoice, young 
man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days 
of thy youth." Be strong. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth 
to do, do it with thy might." Make the most of the powers 
intrusted to you. Cultivate the habit of doing your best in 
all your undertakings. Put your highest energies in requisi- 
tion. Summon to your aid the strongest impulses which the 
enterprise in hand is entitled to enlist in its favor. You are 
a student. Strive to go to the bottom of every subject of in- 
vestigation. Aim at nothing less than a thorough knowledge 
of every author and every branch of science to which you di- 
rect your attention, less for the scholarly acquisitions which 
it insures, than for the mental habits it induces. Accustom 
yourself to superficial study and negligent investigation, and 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 233 

you soon become incapable of any other. The mind speedily 
learns the bad art of being satisfied with this degraded stand- 
ard of performance, and of thinking well of its mean attain- 
ments. It ceases to know, or even to suspect, that there are 
depths beyond the measurements of its own short line, and in, 
the very profoundness of its ignorance grows conceited, and 
egotistic, and flippant. Some years consumed in scholastic 
pursuits, conducted on such a plan, are likely to establish 
mental habits utterly incompatible with any masculine de- 
velopment or honorable achievement in after life, just as the 
prisoner, long confined to his cell, loses the power of vigorous 
and graceful locomotion, or as the invalid, bed-ridden for half 
a lifetime, never afterward aspires to do more than creep soft- 
ly along covered piazzas and shady alcoves. On the contrary, 
earnest, vigorous intellectual effort soon becomes easier than 
any other, because it rallies the mind's best powers, and is 
sustained by its strongest impulses. Such occupation is al- 
ways pleasant, because distastes and ignominious sloth fly 
from the presence of a manly, vigorous movement ; and hon- 
orable success, which earnest, brave endeavor never fails to 
secure, is itself an independent source of interest and satis 
faction perpetually renewed. 

I would inculcate the same doctrine in regard to all of the 
occupations in which an educated young man is likely to en- 
gage. Never enter upon any pursuit or profession which you 
do not deem worthy of your attention ; and when your career 
is once resolved upon, devote to it your undivided energies. 
Aim at the highest excellence. Do your best. Some de- 
partments of professional life present stronger incitements 
than others to this generous outlay of earnestness and endeav- 
or. The urgent competition of the bar, and the fact that 
its efforts are usually made in the presence of learned judges 
and advocates, who would not fail to detect and expose empty 
pretensions, afford, perhaps, the best guarantee against indo- 
lence and superficial attainments — a guarantee, however, 



234 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

which has not been able to exclude from the forum a consid- 
erable number of incompetent men. The physician performs 
his functions in a more private sphere, and, for the most part, 
in the presence of unprofessional spectators, where it is more 
easy to make pretension and bluster pass for science. The 
danger of being content with superficial attainments, and of 
falling into habits of mental lethargy, is proportionably in- 
creased, and with it the need of moral incitements to a faith- 
ful and wise discharge of duties as important and sacred as 
any which do not more directly act upon the moral "and in- 
tellectual interests of man. 

It is worthy of special observation, that those professions 
which are most intimately concerned with the highest inter- 
ests of the race, are more than others remote from the oper- 
ation of ordinary worldly motives, and, to a greater extent, 
left to the power of conscientious and religious considerations. 
This is eminently the case with teachers of youth, whose 
functions are never effectively performed without such a de- 
gree of professional enthusiasm, or of conscientious devotion 
to duty, as will simply the resources of strong impulses and 
unfailing earnestness. The man who has nothing to bring to 
these duties but so much work for so much pay — who retires 
' sePtisfied when he has read his lecture, and made his criti- 
cisms, and recorded delinquencies, may be pronounced wholly 
unfit for the responsibilities of a profession which acts upon 
mind. He might become a respectable artisan or laborer, 
but not a teacher of youth. He is not fit to be trusted with 
the culture of intellect. He does not sympathize with its 
wants or destinies. Whoever rightly comprehends these will 
shrink from the responsibilities of the teacher's profession, or 
he will labor to satisfy them with all the solicitude that a 
sense of personal and religious obligation can inspire. He 
will habituate himself to reflect that he is engaged in mak- 
ing impressions that must remain ineffaceable and immortal 
-—that he is giving to mind such developments and tenden- 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 235 

cies as it shall bear with it through eternity — that no other 
man can correct his mistakes, or supply his deficiencies, or 
atone for his faults. What he does must remain forever es- 
sentially unchanged ; what he neglects to do will remain 
undone. Even professional enthusiasm, without this higher 
sense of the moral relations of his calling, will prove an in- 
sufficient incitement to fidelity to the claims of duty. It may 
insure all due attention to pupils of quick parts and aspiring^ 
minds, but this is precisely the class which has least occa- 
sion for the teacher's aid. The less gifted, the tardier mind, 
the timid, the thoughtless, and even the indolent youth, has 
claims upon the teacher not less sacred ; and the untiring 
zeal, and patient, conscientious fidelity with which he applies 
himself to the self-denying work of developing such minds, 
in so far as they are susceptible of improvement, and of do- 
ing his best with every individual committed to his instruc- 
tion, constitute the highest test of excellency in his vocation 
Whoever is above or below this toilsome detail — whoever 
does not think any sane mind, made immortal by its God 
worthy to engage his solicitude and his labors — has no spe- 
cial calling to the work of a teacher. He may win a repu- 
tation by his success with apt, ambitious pupils, but his neg- 
ligence, impatience, contempt for others, who are also to be 
trained for eternity, intellectually as well as morally, and the 
scantiness of whose resources the more urgently demands a 
painstaking culture, are offenses against humanity and mo- 
rality which it would not be easy to characterize by epithets 
too strong. I dwell the more earnestly upon this topic, because 
a very considerable proportion of our graduates engage either 
for a season or permanently in the business of teaching, and 
I would inspire them with a deep sense of the responsibilities 
they perhaps too inconsiderately assume. I would encourage 
them to enter upon this work with enlarged views and the 
most Christian purposes. It ranks next to the Christian min- 
istry in its intimate relations with man's highest interests, and 



236 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

in the dignity of the greatest usefulness. More properly, it 
is itself a Christian ministry, co-operating with the Gospel in 
exalting the human family to intelligence and purity, and in 
fitting men for the joys and occupations of heaven. Lower 
views than these of the teacher's function will prove too fee- 
ble to sustain his vigor and fidelity under the trials and dis- 
tastes incident to his vocation, and to resist the temptations 
to discouragement and relaxed effort which perverseness, in- 
dolence, and inaptitude will never fail to supply ; while the 
consciousness of toiling, not with the low ambition of quali- 
fying a few more gifted pupils to acquire distinction in liter- 
ary or professional life, but with the holy purpose of prepar- 
ing all, according to the measure of mental capacity bestowed 
upon them by the Creator, for the destinies of their endless 
being, is likely to prove an unfailing source of encouragement 
and strenuous activity. 

In conclusion, I apply the teachings of this discussion to 
the Christian ministry. All who aspire to this holy function 
our argument admonishes to come to its toils prepared to put 
forth the highest mental and moral energies with which na- 
ture, study, and the grace of God have endowed them. Here, 
more than in any secular pursuit, success is proportioned to 
the spirit of consecration and self-sacrifice in which the work 
is done, rather than to the measure of native or acquired en- 
dowments. Such a spirit, however, supposes the most earnest 
endeavors to acquire qualifications for usefulness no less than 
earnestness in the use of them. It breathes itself forth in 
the preparations of the closet no less than in the efforts of 
the pulpit. God has joined these things together, and the 
man who presumptuously puts them asunder does it at the 
csrtain peril of his usefulness no less than of his reputation. 
That Divine grace which, beyond all controversy, is the gre^at 
element of saving power, does, with great uniformity, co-op- 
erate with the clearest, strongest, and most earnest inculca- 
tion of truth ; while the preacher whose thoughts are feeble, 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 237 

puny, and obscure, and uttered heartlessly, is never likely to 
be honored with a sanction which might be mistaken for Heav- 
en's approbation of ignorance or indolence. The Church 
has never more reason to be ashamed than of ministers who 
no longer try to preach well — who only go to their study 
to read newspapers and periodicals, and have nothing fresh- 
er and better for their pulpit than the dry, cold fragments 
of oft-tasted feasts, or the yet more refuse and unwholesome 
viands which the troublous agitations of the moment are able 
to galvanize into some of the lower forms of life. It is won- 
derful that the least spark of piety should not deter men 
from bringing such cheap offerings before God. And yet 
one often hears such moral enormities justified and defended 
on something like logical and Christian grounds. The min- 
ister should not be forever pressing upon his highest notes. 
He should guard against the danger of exciting expectations 
which he will not be able, without much inconvenience, to 
satisfy. It is not quite compatible with humility to labor so 
incessantly after uncommon thoughts and classical expres- 
sions. The minister must come down to the common mind 
if he would not lose the sympathies of his audience. The 
most common argument of all — it betrays an overweening 
confidence in human effort, and too little sense of dependence 
upon God, to lay so much stress upon great sermons. These 
truisms must all essentially fail of sheltering laziness and fol- 
ly under their philosophic or saintly garb, since, in so far as 
they are of any application to the subject, they are embraced 
by the rule which ever demands at the preacher's hands the 
best effort he is able to make. It is great folly, a.s well as 
great arrogance, to talk oncoming down to the popular mind. 
The sort of slip-shod, meaningless preaching to which I have 
adverted, is, beyond all other human performances, incom- 
prehensible by a popular assembly, which grasps with ease 
and spontaneous intuition the luminous thoughts, and 1^rse, 
clear argumentation and analysis of a really intelligent, ear- 



238 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF 

nest man. There is a contagion in the movement of his 
spirit, and the hearer drinks in the deep import of his words 
without a tithe of the labor it costs to sift the eddying chaff 
of an empty, unimpassioned mind. 

The objection with which we are dealing takes it for grant- 
ed that a sermon, which is the product of thoughtful, stud- 
ious hours, must be dark with tantalizing metaphysics, or 
with turbulent scholastic or transcendental jargon, as if the 
man who thinks most vigorously, and prepares most careful- 
ly and systematically, were not more likely, on that account, 
to speak intelligibly. The theory suggested by our subject, 
as Well as by every rational view of the Christian ministry, 
is not over-solicitous about the production of great, or learn- 
ed, or highly-finished, or eloquent sermons ; but it does im- 
peratively demand that every preacher of the Gospel should 
put forth his utmost energies both for preparation and for 
performance — that he keep his soul all alive to the sacred- 
ness and fearful responsibilities of his calling — that he shun 
as a fatal, damnable dereliction, a negligent, perfunctory min- 
istry., which satisfies itself with decent, easy routine, and 
deems it no offense to bring into the Divine presence a maim- 
ed sacrifice, that costs neither study nor prayer, and concil- 
iates the favor of neither God nor man. So far as results are 
concerned, the measure of capacity or learning is of infinitely , 
less importance than the spirit in which the work is done. 
God does unquestionably employ in His vineyard a great va- 
riety of talents and attainments, and He honors every man 
according to the fidelity and spirit of consecration with which 
he fulfills his mission ; but there is no place for the idle — 
none for those who are only half awake — none for those who 
are not prepared to " make full proof of their ministry," who 
are not of a fervent spirit, ready to endure hardness, or bonds, 
or death, for Christ's sake. 

Il»is a source of unspeakable satisfaction, that, in defiance 
of ever-multiplying temptations to worldliness and ambition, 



ELEVATED CHARACTER. 239 

so many of the students and graduates of this University are 
devoted in purpose to this sacred calling. Let them be en- 
treated to remember well that the Christian ministry is not 
a work for drones. " Be ye strong." " Quit you like men." 
Make your sacrifices in a liberal, magnanimous spirit. Hold 
no base parleying with flesh and blood. Ask of the Cruci- 
fied, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" and let the 
responsive oracle be henceforth the law of your being. P, 
rejoice to lay your talents, and your scholarship, and your 
life at the foot of the cross ! " I write unto you, young men, 
because ye are strong." By the grace of God you can achieve 
something worth living for. Be ever mindful of what Di- 
vine resources are at the command of your prayer and faith. 
Seize upon them all, and consecrate them all to the service 
of Him " who hath loved you, and given Himself for you." 
Shun no labor — no sacrifices. Give the best of your life, of 
your learning, of your genius, and your eloquence, if you pos- 
sess them, to Him from whom you have received much more 
than all of these. You will be enriched by what you give. 
You will be made strong by the efforts you shall put forth. 
Such a consecration opens the way to the only true distinc- 
tion. The only ambition worthy of a Christian scholar here 
finds its appropriate field of display. 



y.5,fi£. RY 0F CONGRESS 



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